Salt Lake City Papers Differ in Coverage of Editor's Conference Appearance

By: Joe Strupp Did The Salt Lake Tribune make too much of the rival Deseret News' editor appearing at a conservative policy conference?

In several stories this weekend, the Tribune painted the conference of the Council for National Policy as some kind of right-wing secrecy fest featuring major names such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Gov. Mitt Romney. It then questioned Deseret News editor Joe Cannon's involvement and criticized his agreement not to disclose things that occurred at the convention.

In a story Saturday, the Tribune declared, "Though Cannon is a former lobbyist and brother of Congressman Chris Cannon, his attendance in his new role as a journalist at the meeting closed to news media sends up red flags, ethicists say. That Cannon promised council leaders he would not write about what was discussed should alarm his readers because he is shifting his loyalty from them to powerful government insiders, says Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute, a nonpartisan journalism think tank."

"To have an editor agree to that [confidentiality] sends a really bad message that [journalists] are willing to play by their terms," McBride told the Tribune. "And that our loyalties are with them and not with our audience. In letting [the council] set the rules and the agenda of who you can quote and who you can't quote - that says to the audience that these people are more important than you."

The Tribune adds that the "Council for National Policy, which promotes 'a free-enterprise system, a strong national defense and support for traditional Western values,' is composed of a few hundred powerful conservative activists."

Cannon and Tribune Editor Nancy Conway could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.

Jay Shelledy, a former Tribune editor from 1991 to 2003 and a journalism professor at Louisiana State University, recalled Cannon as a moderate conservative, but criticized his decision to attend the conference.

"I would not accept the invitation if it were a closed session or the media was not welcomed," he told E&P, adding that the Tribune's coverage of Cannon "ought to take more of a shot at him."

Cannon told the Tribune that he would "be explaining to the group how newspapers operate and describing the local media scene. 'These people don't know a lot about how newspapers work.'" The Tribune then pointed out that "Cannon has been at his new career for only a few months. When he was named editor of the Morning News in December he had no previous journalism experience outside his 11 years on the LDS Church-owned newspaper's board."

Cannon also told the paper "he will try to interview and write about a few of the people attending, some of whom are friends from his lobbying days. 'I'm not pretending to cover the event,' he said. 'I believe I can do a service to the readers of our paper by talking to some of these people - and a lot of them are newsmakers.'"

In a separate story on the conference, the Tribune described the organization as "a shadowy group comprising leaders in the family values, national defense and 'decency' movements, dubbed 'Sith Lords of the Ultra-Right' by the liberal blog DailyKos."

It also stated, "Vice President Dick Cheney and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney addressed some of the most influential leaders of the conservative movement Friday in Salt Lake City, but their speeches, like the group itself, remain cloaked in secrecy."

In its own story on the conference, the Morning News briefly acknowledged Cannon's involvement, saying, "Joe Cannon, editor of the Deseret Morning News and former chairman of the Republican Party in Utah, also was scheduled to speak to the council about media coverage in Utah." But it made no mention of any ethical concerns raised by his actions.

The Morning News also pointed to the barriers on the press, reporting, "the event was closed to news media," and later, that "Romney was approached by news media as he entered the event but declined to comment."