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A funny thing happened on my way to help BlogHer pull off its exclusive interview in Oregon with Sen. Barack Obama -- my plane from Newark arrived in Salt Lake City too late for me to make the connecting flight. As a result, I got to spend the night in a place that was completely new for me. And when I visit a new place, I love to look at the local newspaper to supplement the impressions that I'm getting from the sights and sounds around me.
Being in Salt Lake City and reading the Salt Lake City Tribune made me aware of a blind spot that this Easterner didn't even know she had. Geography is one of five fault lines identified by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education as a potential impediment to fair and accurate news coverage. Other fault lines include race, gender, class and generational difference. It was not until I found myself in Utah that I realized how many preconceptions I had in my head. I expected it to be heavily Mormon, white, wealthy and conservative. Salt Lake City conjured up Donnie and Marie, Sen. Harry Reid, former Gov. Mitt Romney and the Mormon Tabernacle choir. And oh yeah -- a really good basketball team. The earring worn by the very polite and helpful agent at the Delta counter should have been my first clue.
But reading the local paper really made me wish I'd had time to explore the town. I love blogs, and I love reading news online, but spending time with a great paper like the SLTrib reminded me of so much of what's special about newspapers. Since I've come home, I've also spent time reading some local blogs.
The big story on Saturday, of course, was the heartbreaker loss The lead story was the Jazz's heart-stopping three-point loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA playoffs. You can see the great writing on the web, but the huge front-page play of the story, along with the gorgeous game photos on the front page and in the sports section are best experience by holding the broadsheet in your hands.
The other story above the fold on the front page was also an eye-opener: a report from a conference at the University of Utah on research into special germs that mght neutralize mercury pollution in the Great Salt Lake. Below the fold there was a new story on the FLDS, the polygamous Texas-based sect whose children were removed because of accuations that children were being sexually abused. Online, the SLtrib's got a special section with ongoing FLDS coverage. On the web, there's also a special section on the Mormon church.
The faith section featured an amusing, but instructive column on the controversy over the Mormon practice of sending up baptismal prayers for the dead members of other faiths. I hope you don't mind if I share a bit with you:
Several weeks ago, a woman sent me a list of all the reasons I was going to hell for being a Mormon. It was a long list.
I get damned a lot. Mostly it comes from God's winged monkeys.
I get it from fundamentalist Christians, Muslims, Jews, faiths
I never heard of before, and other Mormons who don't think I'm Mormon
enough.
But the lead story in that section was about an interfaith annual "Blessing of the Hands" ceremony at St. Mark's Hospital. The ceremony included a femaile episcopal priest, an imam, a Buddhist priest, an Arapaho healer and Bryce, the therapy dog.
Other stories caught my eye as well -- especially the business section, where there were stories abotu green development and the privatization of the city's wirless network infrastructure. Crime coverage wasn't nearly as prominent as I'm used to seeing back east. National news wasn't all that prominent either, and came mostly from the wires.
Overall, the paper piqued my curiosity about the town. A blog search turned up some unusual and interesting items:
- The Weber County Forum accuses the Salt Lake City Republican Party of filing a "flakey"[sic] IRS complaint against the local chapter of the NAACP after an officer of that organization reportedly urged the defeat of a Utah state senator who made remarks that some have seen as racist. The local GOP chariman said that the NAACP violated IRS' rules against political activities by non-profit tax-exempt organizations.
