Salt Lake Editor Resigns Amid 'Enquirer Affair'

By: C.G. Wallace, Associated Press Writer (AP) The editor of The Salt Lake Tribune resigned Thursday, two days after two of the paper's reporters were dismissed for lying about selling information to a supermarket tabloid in the Elizabeth Smart case.

Tribune publisher Dean Singleton, also head of the newspaper's owner, MediaNews Group, announced the resignation after meeting with the newspaper's staff Thursday afternoon.

James E. Shelledy will remain with MediaNews, but it wasn't immediately clear in what capacity. Bill Long, corporate editor for MediaNews, was appointed interim editor.

"I don't think the public image was that imperiled. The big shock was in the newsroom," Singleton told The Associated Press after the announcement.

Shelledy issued a statement after Thursday's meeting.

"It has become clear to me and the publisher that it will take a new editor to bring an end to the newsroom contention over what will forever be known as the Enquirer affair," Shelledy said. "I am tired; we both see needs for new direction."

Singleton was in Salt Lake on Wednesday and Thursday to meet with staffers who feared the reporters' involvement with the tabloid -- and Shelledy's handling of the matter -- had seriously damaged the Tribune's credibility.

After the newsroom meeting, some staffers cried and lined up to shake Shelledy's hand. Shelledy wiped tears from his eyes. Most of the staffers quietly filed out of the newsroom.

"I have been the editor of The Salt Lake Tribune for 12 years, two months, and a day. There have been good times and bad, but the thrill of producing a daily newspaper never ebbed. I have been a colleague of hundreds of great people over those dozen years," Shelledy said in his statement.

He concluded the statement by saying: "Today's edition will be my last. Make it a good one and thank you for those 4,444 days."

Reporters Michael Vigh and Kevin Cantera were each paid $10,000 by the National Enquirer for information included in a story that was later retracted.

The reporters offered to quit after the payments became known. But Shelledy refused their resignations, instead putting them on a year's probation and pulling them off coverage of the Smart case.

On Tuesday, he announced their firings. He said they told him they had given the tabloid only a "roadmap" of the investigation, but that he later learned they had provided a much larger part of the story.

The July 2 Enquirer story headlined "Utah Cops: Secret Diary Exposes Family Sex Ring" has been retracted as part of a settlement between the Smart family and the tabloid.