City Weekly's in-house historian reflects on the past, present and future of Utah's 40-year-old alternative newspaper. 

And so we reach the conclusion of a 40-week-long reporting project. It's been a long haul, folks, quite literally requiring decades to take shape and then—at least for my small part—months to put together. Reading four decades of a weekly newspaper's archive and attempting to summarize a full year of content each week can certainly leave its impressions on a person. Every worthwhile subject will do that, of course, but this experience warrants special elaboration. For a moment, I step out from my reporter's posture and offer what has struck me through the course of crafting our City Weekly Rewind series, which ends with a final installment on 2023 through 2024.

To begin with, I would like to offer my sincere gratitude to everyone who has worked with me in seeing this project through, from our editors and art department to the Saltas family generally: your suggestions, support and vision made each component of the series better than it would have been were I to have forged ahead alone. I can also happily state that I was given great latitude and freedom in choosing what to do with each installment—there were neither thumbs pressed to the scale nor directives on what memories to dredge up or on who I should and should not speak to. I'm thankful for the guidance as well as for the trust.

And then there's our alumni. I consider it one of the honors of my life to have met so many individuals connected to this paper. I tried to cast as wide a net as possible, acknowledging that there would be all too many whom I would fail to reach. Whether writers, salespeople, artists, interns or technical specialists, City Weekly has seen many people come and go. To all those I missed, please know that it was not my intention to leave you out or to create an impression that you did not also have a hand in this 40-year legacy. You did, you do and such shall ever be the case.

Editors leave their invisible mark upon stories with which they are seldom credited; marketers photograph events at which they are seldom noticed; printers and delivery people ensure the arrival of new issues and are seldom thanked; and countless people both on and off staff provide leads to stories about which none of us would have known had someone not spoken up.

To all of the above as well as to you, our City Weekly readers, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Your support has meant the world and no matter what content brings you to our pages—whether hard-hitting news or as a reference for which music venue to attend and which restaurant to try out—we hope to continue serving this community for decades more.

An Alternative Community
Some definite recurring themes leapt to my attention. Foremost has been the impression that no matter the era—from City Weekly's early Midvale days and the scrappy camaraderie in the shadow of the Port O' Call to our peak operations on Main Street and the tenuous times of pandemic scarcity—a passionate sense of mission has kept this paper going when so much else has been in flux.

"We were the underdogs and often reporting on things that people didn't like," former editor Rachel Piper summarized in a recent interview.

Piper added that even when the occasional critic dismissed stories with labels like "rag" or "yellow journalism," there remained a palpable sense of providing a true alternative to the public that could not be replicated anywhere else in the valley.

"When we reported on something," she said, "there was this extra scrutiny."

Recalling his work with the paper, former editor Tom Walsh remarked on the good, hard-working people who devoted their time and talents.

"I was impressed," he said. "We were there to challenge ourselves."

A willingness to grow and a creative hunger to stay attuned to the lived experience of the community has been a saving grace despite anything else we may have lacked. A venture like City Weekly lives or dies by its people, by the honesty of its reporting, by the support of local merchants and with the benefit of good luck. Papers like ours reach both the powerful as well as the forgotten, the upstanding as well as the criminal and, hopefully, it has something of value to provide every reader, wherever they fall within our vast and complicated community.

"This newspaper has always facilitated connection," former writer Stacy Steck remarked. "Humans need connection; it's a great thing."

Alternatives and community—these words are often difficult to define and can even come into cross purposes. Does "community" only refer to smaller subgroups or does it embrace an entire landscape? Does "alternative" necessarily equate to a rejection of all established and majority elements in thought, belief, taste, or practice? These are questions without easy answers, and perhaps their ongoing negotiation provides a paper like our own with the vitality it requires to keep going.

Minding the Gaps
Utah is hardly lacking for the complexities inherent in hosting numerous communities (and communities within those communities). We find ourselves in a land inhabited—as reporter Katharine Biele described in 1994—by many groups which all legitimately "identify themselves with minority status," all seeking dominance or feeling ill at ease for not enjoying that dominance. "It's too much headwork," as a local psychic once remarked to Marty Foy.

It can be easy to label this as a kind of unbridgeable divide, stereotypically with all Mormons on one side—due to the historic prominence of their church here—and everyone else on the other. Power-seekers and commentators too often exploit or misconstrue these perceived tensions for their own purposes and too many of us, to our detriment, go along with their characterizations.

"In the end," former editor Ben Fulton once wrote, "Salt Lakers are over everyone's heads—including our own."

Indeed, while this paper facilitates exploring all areas of our shared culture and reports on issues often sensitive to those with power, we ourselves have likely been guilty on occasion of exacerbating less important divisions by reaching for low-hanging fruit—though not as often as our more ardent critics would suggest. We have, from time to time, taken legitimate problems in our state and used them as vehicles to bludgeon Mormonism writ large. That was the concern raised by reader Paul Jones in a letter to the editor from 2000.

"The real problem, as I see it," he opined, "is that the City Weekly has made the Mormon church the paper's bête noire, thereby alienating a good share of potential contributors. Now, certainly the church wields enormous power in the state and it's a fair target. But the constant haranguing of Mormon beliefs and teachings seems to have beggared the paper's overall quality and editorial imagination."

From personal observation, such a state of affairs has neither been the intention nor governing force of either this paper or its founder. Being a community alternative, we house a plethora of voices, styles and perspectives, and that is both healthy and desirable. The problem is when the "juvenile" attitude Jones described becomes the ruling sentiment among either readers or writers on any given subject, which breeds both a boring paper as well as a community unable to really see one another on account of the ever-growing chips on our shoulders.

"We can sneer at those who do things or believe things we'd never possibly do or believe," A&E editor Scott Renshaw once wrote, "because it's uncomfortable to think about personal compasses that point in different directions than the north we know is true. Lack of imagination is a disease—a gaping psychic hole where a broader, fundamental compassion for the spectrum of human experience should be."

As a paper and as a community of communities, we would all do well to avoid this lack of imagination and narrowness of soul. It leaves us open to both flawed journalism and to the very ills that have beset Utah for over 40 years now.

A New Utah
"We live in a beautiful state where we should all get along and plan a sane future together," reporter John Harrington once wrote. "Instead, we pave what we can and pollute the rest at an alarming rate. Neighbors are encouraged to spy on neighbors and call police if someone in the house next door appears 'to be keeping irregular hours.' Public officials hide critical information from you to make their financial benefactors, friends, families and themselves wealthy at public expense. In response, Utahns have stopped voting in huge numbers. They have decided to simply follow a dead-end path, whining or not caring while they get ripped off, their futures brokered away in back rooms."

This splintering of communities over decades has had devastating effects, as John Saltas commented in 2005, leaving each of us as lonely and isolated "fodder" for whichever politician most effectively stirs us against each other while they help themselves to the public fund.

"We talk about 'society' or 'community' as if we are a part of it, but we are not," Saltas opined. "We merely view what passes as society while our leaders talk wearily about 'building bridges.' If you build a town, a city, a community, you don't have to build a bridge."

I would assert that it is neither religion nor non-religion, neither age nor youth, neither race, sexual orientation or any other point of difference at the root of our woes in this world.

The true dangers are the antisocial lusts for power and gain, for these vices can wear whatever custom or costume and utilize any language or justification required to reach their selfish ends—dissolving any ties that stand in the way and convincing victims that such is both natural and normal.

Through this, we have observed a quirky, flawed, ethnically- and historically-rich state like Utah transform since the 1980s into a hotspot for affinity fraud, bigotry and virtuous selfishness, its citizens frequent dupes of many a local/national charlatan seeking political office or payouts.

"In the midst of all of our daily lives," John Saltas wrote in 2013, "in the midst of our select history and right under the ridges of Utah's grandest peaks, a new Utahn emerged: the corrupt, pocket-lining, lying scumbag."

And yet, as reader "Steve" reminded us in a 2013 letter, many great people remain throughout the Beehive State. Such persons "are those who couldn't care less what your religious or anti-religious beliefs are. They are open to everyone and don't get all uppity and defensive if they are invited to church or if they are invited to a club or bar. They are kind and genuine. They are Mormon and non-Mormon."

These are the people who embody us at our best, people who are not well-served by either our current one-party political environment or by sweeping generalizations from our fractured (and company-owned) media.

Yes, much in Utah has changed for the worse in 40 years, but many things have also gotten better, largely thanks to the continued presence of the people so applauded by observers like "Steve." Their profiles and actions have filled our pages in refreshing ways from the beginning and should be treasured by all.

Cutting Through the Fog
Over the history of this paper, as reporter Ellen Fagg Weist related recently, "you could really tell that readers were involved in what was breaking; there was a core group of readers who gave a response." In recent years, however, our communities are less often reading the same things for their information, and consequently, "the conversation isn't the same."

How will our changed population and the generations that follow them further affect the alt-weekly model now that we all struggle to find ourselves on the same page?

This remains a vital question for us as we compete with the "sea of crapola" that inundates every platform, in reporter Shane Johnson's estimation.

"I think that the absolute waterfall of outlets has perverted the importance of the journalism City Weekly did and [does]," he said. "The saturation is too much and too easy at the click of a button."

Rather than venture into the shallows for the sake of clicks and circulation, the media needs to be creative in how we tell our stories and assiduous in bringing others along with us. There are more gifted writers and reporters out there than any of us realize, who are very well informed about their communities and spheres of life, whether politically, culturally, etc.

We can strive to get more of our citizens engaged with our long-form approach, for rare are the public platforms that offer them anymore; rarer still with the freedom and latitude City Weekly encourages. What's more, that perennial funding question continues to bedevil us and similar outfits around the nation, often impeding our most important function: investigative journalism.

"If I had a desire for City Weekly, it would be that somebody rich would endow it with a good chunk of change for the sole purpose of investigative journalism," columnist Bruce Baird said. "It takes resources, it takes balls, it takes sources. And we need it, because whenever you're in a one-party state, there's corruption and stupidity way beyond what anybody knows about."

Editor Jerre Wroble spoke along similar lines during our interview, stating that investigative journalism was our most important element, if also our biggest challenge. "I want to read in-depth stories about the people and events at the heart of Salt Lake City," she stressed. "I want to know who are the people pulling the levers and whether they are doing a good job, and that's hard with the limited investigative resources for any paper."

Are these concerns daunting? Absolutely. Is the path ahead assured? Absolutely not. Such has been our tortuous journey since our founding, but thanks to the assortment of rebels and dreamers who kept this paper alive by producing it and reading it, the path forward remains open for further traveling.

Where will that path lead us, I wonder. Will it lead us to become better informed and better acquainted with one another? Will it lead to changes in how we choose our leaders, how we honor our past, how we plan our cities, and how we value life itself?

We've contributed to these very outcomes in our reporting over the years, and there's no reason why this cannot continue far into the future.

"When the Stranger says: 'What is the meaning of this city? / Do you huddle close together because you love each other?'" queried T.S. Eliot's chorus in the pageant play The Rock. "What will you answer? 'We all dwell together / To make money from each other'? or 'This is a community?'"

Now that's what I call an alternative.

Katharine Biele (CW Contributor)
I had no expectation that City Weekly would take over my life, but thanks to John [Saltas] and Tom Walsh, it has become so important to my voice in the community. The first story I did was for Tom [Walsh], trolling around a downtown community and trying to figure out what it meant to live there with poverty, crime and drugs. We spent a lot of time editing the cover and interestingly, it accidentally went to press without the edits.

Lindsay Larkin (CW Alum)
City Weekly still means 'community' to me—it's such a special part of my life. I made lifelong friends.

Jen Seals (Reader)
Back in the mid- to late-90s, my friend Joey and I would meet up at Bill and Nada's after a late night shift for a plate of fries, a slice of pie and some people-watching. We'd grab a Private Eye/City Weekly, laugh over the personal ads and the comics and enjoy a brief but always pleasant chat with Bill about the latest local news. The city was so much ours at 2 a.m. with our paper in hand, surrounded by other folks that didn't quite fit into the Utah Mormon Rockwell picture.

Annie Quan (CW Alum)
Some of my closest friends came from that office. I met my partner through Paula [Saltas]. City Weekly was pretty incredible for our lives. It was instrumental in creating who we are today.

John Harrington (Private Eye/CW Alum)
We were always kicking somebody's ass. That was sort of the atmosphere around the office—like the Wild West. We really took the gloves off. We'd get lawyers' letters threatening us all the time. It was great. I think that kind of journalism, in the age of the internet, gets lost in the informational glut.

Matt Petterborg (Reader)
I thoroughly enjoy the annual Dining Guide. I love finding new restaurants to try.

Jerre Wroble (CW Editor)
I love City Weekly. I love that Salt Lake City has that kind of paper. I want it to survive; I want it to be a paper that has impact. I would say that the day I got to City Weekly was when my teenage dreams came true.

Gov. Spencer Cox
(via formal declaration)
Whereas, City Weekly has provided a vehicle for writers, tradespeople, artists and everyday Utahns to speak, work and live together with greater frankness, humor and curiosity; Whereas, City Weekly has been serving the citizens of Salt Lake and Utah at large for 40 years; and, Whereas local journalism is the lifeblood of an informed democracy, Now, therefore, I, Spencer J. Cox, governor of the state of Utah, do hereby recognize June 2024 as the 40th anniversary of City Weekly.

Nicole Enright (CW Alum)
City Weekly was the most fun and awesome job I have ever had in my life. It was the wildest point for me personally, and I suppose a little professionally as well.

Shane Johnson (CW Alum)
Back then, I would have killed or died for that paper. I thought that that paper was so important as an alternative to the dailies and local press. I think that the journalism that it has done [over the years] has outpaced the dailies by leaps and bounds.

Kathy Mueller (CW Alum)
Thanks for so many good years and congratulations on 40 years of making sure Utah knows what's up!

Jackie Briggs (CW Alum)
I came from the northwest. [City Weekly] felt like a key to the city. We're lucky to have this voice that's been so impactful. Not only has it represented the culture of Salt Lake but it has shaped it, too. That's such a cool part of Utah and the Salt Lake story.

Tom Walsh (Private Eye Alum)
The longer you're in the business, the more you appreciate the long-form. I am proud to have been the first editorial employee and helped get it going. Compliments to John [Saltas] and everyone for keeping it going. So much of local news has been in demise across the country and it's really unfortunate. Congratulations to all of you!

Joseph Peterson (Reader/Contributor)
I relied on City Weekly to connect with a city that was new to me, where I could read about restaurants and performances and movies and events I'd be interested in. I grew to use and enjoy City Weekly for years as a constant and reliable resource for plugging into the community. When I wanted to try my hand at writing offbeat restaurant reviews City Weekly gave me a chance to share and grow my voice. They were one of my first bylines and I'm still so proud to have written for them.

Jenny Poplar (CW Alum)
I thank my lucky stars that Ben Fulton welcomed me into the City Weekly family in 2005. I have nothing but love for a local institution that has enhanced my life and the lives of Utah readers for four decades.

Rachel Piper (CW Alum)
I loved working at City Weekly. Utah's always going to need an alternative voice; there's not as much diversity as there could be. City Weekly plays a critical role there.

Jamie Gadette (CW Alum)
Thanks to City Weekly, I learned how to put it all out there, take risks, risk humiliation and admit when I messed up and couldn't take it back because it was laid bare in print. I'd do it all over again. No notes.

Bruce Baird (CW Alum)
I wouldn't want to think about where Salt Lake would be without City Weekly. It made it harder for the mainstream press to ignore something.

Jesse Fruhwirth (CW Alum)
You couldn't trust any other news outlet to see someone labeled 'perpetrator' and have their story told in which their profound victimhood—or at least their complicated humanity—shines through. You'd have to come to CW for that.

Kat Topaz (Private Eye Alum)
It was a pivotal moment in my life. There's no reason [John Saltas] should have hired me; I was this stuck-up designer from New York. The second I [started working at the paper], it just blew my mind. It was totally different from everything I had done. I could make a difference; that for me was the beginning of the lights going on.

Mary Dickson (CW Alum)
Local papers are so important to the community. There are always people doing wrong things, always issues to report on. Politically, this state should be reported more, and City Weekly is our alternative. It's part of the community. The more media we have, the better off we are.

Daniel Moss (Reader)
Pre-internet it was the best—if not the only—way to find out what was happening in the valley. Restaurant reviews were almost always spot on.

Alex Springer (CW Contributor)
Thanks for keeping Utah cool for the last 40 years, City Weekly. Here's to keeping us cool for the next 40 years as well.

David Pace (Private Eye Alum)
Behind every enduring newspaper—daily, weekly, a once-in-a-while rag—there's a dogged, hard-boiled journalist who eats, drinks and dreams (in) the fourth estate. City Weekly's John Saltas is one of them. ... He was generous with his writers even when he got crotchety, had to sell ads, found himself railing about the dailies getting it wrong, under-representing the underdog, and bowing to conglomerates that perpetually put the almighty dollar before the truth. As a writer, I cut my teeth on theater reviews for John and at other alternatives in the valley and will always be grateful for those opportunities.

Shane McCammon (CW Alum)
I don't think its impact can be overstated. Personally speaking, I wouldn't be the same person that I am if I didn't work for the Weekly. I learned to challenge authority in a specific sort of way. In a short period of time, it changed my life for the better. I think it has changed lives in the Salt Lake Valley for the better, too.

Carl Rubadue (Private Eye Alum)
I want to say thanks for the courageous journalism and the vision that John [Saltas] had when he started the paper. The patrons that he has maintained and brought on, etc. It's obvious that there was and still is a space for it.

Scott Renshaw (CW Editor)
A paper like City Weekly matters in a different way here. This paper is important to people who want to know that they're not crazy. Having a clearly progressive-thinking publication in a place where there are so many people who think it's evil, matters. I feel very lucky and proud to work for more than 20 years in a place that aligns with my principles and values. Very few people get to do that.

Josh Loftin (CW Alum)
It's gratifying to see City Weekly still going, 40 years after its founding, with its principles intact and the Saltas family still entrenched at the top.

Bryan Young (CW Contributor)
For almost half a century, City Weekly has stood for something in Utah that people need. It's been an honor getting to contribute to that legacy, even in the smallest of ways.

John Paul Brophy (Private Eye/CW Alum)
I'm honored to be a part of it at all. Forty years? My God. A real respect for what [John Saltas] has done. Here's to 40 more years. Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!

Gavin Sheehan (CW Alum)
To the readers: thanks. You didn't have to [read us]; you chose to. Thanks for supporting us in what we did.

Kathleen Curry Griffin and Geoff Griffin (CW Alumni)
John Saltas' stroke of genius was that this news and entertainment weekly was built to absorb and even highlight the way Salt Lake City has grown, both literally and figuratively. Here's to 40 more years!

Ryan Bradford (CW Alum)
You could gauge how cool a city was by the quality of their alternative weekly. There [are] few cooler than City Weekly.

Paula Saltas (First lady of Private Eye/City Weekly)
City Weekly has taken a toll on our lives. But in the end, this has all been worth it. Our family is always working non-stop. It isn't an 8 hour day—this is a 24/7 career. We are the last ones to take a check, if at all. It has been a lot of blood, sweat and tears for sure. But for the most part, it has been a joy to grow with our co-workers, we are all family, we all would help each other at the drop of a hat. No matter what. We have employed so many people and it is wonderful to see them grow into careers after us too. Past employees have made lifelong friends and some have married each other too—a few that I even set up!

Carolyn Campbell (Private Eye/CW Contributor)
I think it's a wonderful community outlet. When I publish stories, all my friends—whether liberal or conservative—seem to appreciate the worth of City Weekly. It's been a wonderful part of my life, and I'll always be grateful for the day that John Saltas approached me to write for them. I'm always thankful to have assignments for it.

Ross "Rocky" Anderson (Private Eye/CW Lawyer)
It offers so much that is crucial to this community. Entertainment, arts and culture are vital and of importance to the audience, but for me the fundamentally crucial element of City Weekly is the investigative work that is done. If CW didn't publish these pieces, nobody would know the information. There's also an irreverence that I find refreshing, even when I was the target.

Deena Marie Manzanares (CW Alum)
My contributions and press clippings from City Weekly are tied to the most incredible, fun and golden years of my life. Long live the CW!

Larry Carter (CW Alum)
My fondest moments were the parties. I loved the parties and John's speeches were the best. To the readers: Just keep believing. Keep believing in CW and what they stand for.

Ron Atencio (STREET Ogden Magazine Publisher/Private Eye Alum)
Good for you, John! I told you you were crazy, but you did it.

Ellen Fagg Weist (Private Eye Alum)
I always loved longform journalism and Private Eye gave me an opportunity to do that when I was between jobs. ... I'm thrilled that there is a City Weekly and I'm thrilled that there are people who are still fighting for it.

Ron Yengich (Private Eye Alum)
Great journalists—and I honestly count John Saltas as one of them—are not necessarily "equipped to bring 'grace and measure' out of the chaos of man on earth" (James Thurber), but are fully equipped to see injustice for what it is; find a way to articulate what lies behind the mainstream journalists' lack of courage; and expose the lies of those who need to be held accountable for the chaos they bring to this life's journey. I honestly think John had that vision long ago and it has continued unabated at the City Weekly these past four decades. I am happy I was there in its infancy.

Greg Foster (Reader)
It's legitimately kept [me] in the know about what's going on since I was in college. Concerts, new restaurants, festivals, etc. Hell, it's how I learned about Wednesdays at Ah Sushi, which has kept me fed and drunk for years.

Stephen Dark (CW Alum)
Partly a voice for the underdog, partly the voice for retailers who struggle—[the paper's] reflective of a swath of community that sees themselves as outsiders [or] independent. [And yet] it's also read by members of the church as well. It was a privilege to write for the paper and have those pages to fill. If you let someone do a longform story, that's a deep dive into who they are; it's a big undertaking for the subject and the writer. On that basis, [City Weekly] is reflective of an element of trust that has built up over the years since John Saltas started Private Eye.

Stacy Steck (Private Eye Alum)
Thank you for working hard enough to keep it alive and relevant. For me, it was a wonderful experience.

Bill Frost (Private Eye/CW Contributor)
I guess someone needs to be somewhat of a countercultural voice around here. It's nice to have something like City Weekly that's at least a little on the edge. It gave me a career when I had no prospect of one.

Mason Rodrickc (CW Alum)
City Weekly still has a precious place in my heart. It's part of Salt Lake, and as long as they are able to do what they do, they will keep being part of the heart of Salt Lake.

"Super" Dell Schanze (Reader comment from July 12, 2007)
I think you guys are a disgrace to Utah and an absolute disgust to the nation.

Ocho 40
By Bill Frost

Eight local developments to expect when City Weekly turns 50 in 2034

8. NHL team Wasatch Sasquatch celebrates 10 years in Utah with a Stanley Cup win at Dragonfly Wellness Arena.

7. Swig & Smoke opens its 38th combo dirty soda shop/marijuana dispensary in South Jordan.

6. Hologram news reporter Ben Winslow posts about his latest Best of Utah win on dmstrFYRE, the internet's lone remaining social media site.

5. Netflix becomes an exclusively "All Weird Mormon Cult Documentaries All the Time" streaming service.

4. The crowd at a Red Butte Garden concert spontaneously combusts due to regular summer temperatures of 175+ degrees, and they still won't shut up.

3. Thanks to a corporate sponsorship deal, all local restaurants are Olive Gardens. On the upside, each location also contains a State Liquor Store.

2. Apartments in Salt Lake City go for $4,500 a month, but tenants have 650,000 empty units to choose from.

1. City Weekly's EditorBot 5000 requests a golden anniversary Ocho from Gov. Bill Frost, now a floating brain in a jar.

• City Weekly

Down at the Port O'Call
By Christa Zaro

The Port O'Call was the most iconic Utah bar and home to City Weekly's own social club. At the end of a work day, employees leaving the building en route to their homes would have to walk past the large glass front windows of the Shubrick Building. In the far east corner of the bar was "our" large circular wooden captain's table—an eight top—and John Saltas sat at the helm. There would be a knock on the glass window and a motion to come in or a nod to sit down around the table and share the day with John and coworkers.

We all walked past the bouncers because they all knew us to be in our own private club. We smoked lots of cigarettes and ran up John's bar tab. We shared tales and knew when it was about to get serious—John would ask the waitress to bring a bar napkin to jot down notes.

Some talk of the day: conservative Gayle Ruzicka calls us porn; scrambling for advertiser checks every Friday; Deedee Corradini's Bonneville Pacific scandal; District Attorney Neal Gunnarson throws out a rack of our papers; a restaurant owner physically threatens dining critic Ted Scheffler over a critical review; crying over the dead Zephyr; day-drinking without alcohol meters because of power outage from the '99 tornado; exposing 2002 Olympic corruption.

Resistance was futile, the smoke still lingers, and the bar conversations will never fade.