Deseret News gets pushy in mayoral race

By: Joe Strupp Salt Lake City paper asked tough questions, but did it go too far? by JOE STRUPP

Asking mayoral candidates if they've ever been arrested, used illegal drugs, or failed to pay income taxes are probably fair requests for most reporters. But what about asking whether they've ever had cars repossessed, filed lawsuits, or received counseling?
Such questions are under debate in Salt Lake City, where The Deseret News is getting both praise and criticism for sending to the city's two candidates for mayor a 31-item questionnaire that covers subjects ranging from adultery activities to their children's criminal past.
Owned by the Mormon Church, The Deseret News, with a daily circulation of 66,000, has contended that the survey of the two finalists in a Nov. 2 runoff election is a proper reporting tool. Editor John Hughes said the questionnaire, coming on the heels of the Salt Lake Olympic Committee scandal and a gift controversy involving outgoing Mayor DeeDee Corradini, was necessary.
"We just felt that whoever is elected will have to rebuild the image of the city and that [the survey] was proper," said Hughes. "No longer can you divorce ethics and personal character from public office."
But critics, such as Kat Snow, vice president of the Utah chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, contend the questionnaire steps beyond the bounds of proper journalism, while avoiding other issues.
"It goes too far," said Snow, a senior reporter at KUER public radio in Salt Lake City. "Some of those kinds of things you don't need to know."
The survey, first sent to the candidates in mid-September, included other question such as: Have you ever had a life-threatening illness? Have you ever defaulted on a loan? Have you ever asked a friend for a loan of more than $5,000? Have you ever been charged with sexual harassment? Did you ever drop out of high school or junior high?
The survey included no questions about city policies, taxes, crime, housing, economic growth, public education, or the environment. But editors said they were addressing those issues through other stories and coverage.
The two mayoral candidates, Rocky Anderson and Stuart Reid ? who made it to the runoff after placing first and second in a 12-candidate general election in September ? offered sharply different responses to the questionnaire.
Reid sent a terse letter to The Deseret News in which he refused to fill out the survey, calling it "a precedent that would deter people from seeking public office."
Anderson agreed to answer all the questions, but limited those about alcohol and drug use to events dating back only 17 years, which is when his son was born. He contended that his actions involving possible drug or alcohol use prior to then are not worthy of judgment.
Anderson also criticized the questionnaire as "wholly inappropriate."
The Deseret News initially planned to use the questionnaire only as a research tool for basic candidate profiles of Anderson and Reid, editors said. But when word leaked out about the surveys, drawing fire from the rival Salt Lake Tribune and other local media, the newspaper felt the need to publish the questions, which ran in the paper's Oct. 24 issue along with profiles of each candidate.
Among the harshest critics was the 133,000-daily-circulation Salt Lake Tribune, which ran several columns slamming the News.
"The Deseret News questionnaire was a good idea with a bad (if not criminally insane) direction," wrote Tribune columnist Robert Kirby. "It should have focused on things pertaining to a candidate's ability to address real issues and not stuff that doesn't matter."
The Tribune also scolded the News for sending the lengthy survey only to Salt Lake City mayoral candidates, and not those running for office in smaller, neighboring towns.
Hughes countered that such smaller political races do not deserve the same scrutiny. "We considered this the critical one," he said.
Deseret News supporters, such as Tom Griffith, journalism coordinator at Brigham Young University in nearby Provo, agreed that such a survey can serve a vital function. "If there is something in their past that might affect how they operate, it is fair game," Griffith said.
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