"The Olympics Turn into a Five-Ring Circus" was the headline in Time magazine.
Also Tuesday, while "Good Morning America" interviewed Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt about "the sex and bribery scandal," the St. Louis Post-Dispatch asked if these were really "The Best Games Money Can Buy?"Meanwhile, from the Korea Times came reassurance from a previous Games organizer: "Seoul Chosen for '88 Olympics in Absolute Transparency."
The London Free Press headline said, "Calgary Touted As New Site for Games." In Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald reported, "Scandal May Cool Olympic Sponsors."
In Minnesota, the Star-Tribune headline read, "New sex charge rocks Salt Lake City." And a Canadian paper, The Globe and Mail, reported, "Scandal places Games in peril."
Without even waiting for the year 2002, Salt Lake City has garnered the attention of the world.
Frank Zang, director of communication at the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, took 66 phone calls in his Salt Lake office Tuesday. Not all of them were from reporters, he said. (A repairman called to tell him his furnace was fixed, and several friends phoned to see how he was bearing up.)
But most of Zang's calls werefrom reporters from every part of the globe. They asked how the investigations are proceeding. Zang spent a good part of his day setting up interviews. Shelley Thomas and Robert Garff (SLOC spokeswoman and chairman, respectively) took all the questions, Zang said.
And when they finished talking to Thomas and Garff, the reporters turned their attention to . . . other reporters.
On Monday and Tuesday, several Deseret News reporters and editors fielded requests for interviews.
Deseret News editor John Hughes gave interviews to radio stations in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and England as well as the United States. Assistant managing editor Rick Hall talked to representatives of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and a Tokyo newspaper.
Hall believes reporters are calling the Deseret News because of the paper's ongoing coverage, including Lisa Riley Roche's exclusive interview with Tom Welch that ran Sunday. Said Hall, "Tom has not talked in depth about this thing, not talked at all since the resignations. So we became the logical source."
Deseret News reporter Jerry Spangler, who covers the environment, politics and the Games, takes a call or two a day from reporters outside of Utah. Most want to know what LDS Church members are thinking. "It may be a harbinger of what is to come when the Games are here," Spangler said. "There is going to be a fascination with Mormons."
A reporter from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. called Tuesday to interview Spangler. He asked if Salt Lakers believe they may be stripped of the Games.
People from Quebec think they got robbed, Spangler notes. He told the CBC that Utahns may underestimate the possibilities. "Our headlines say, 'No way we could ever lose the Games.' "
Meanwhile, headlines in other parts of the world say Salt Lake City "could"lose the Games. They say that and more. "Tarnished Gold," the Detroit News says. "Scapegoats ID'd, but what about bosses?" The Fresno Bee asks over an Associated Press story questioning why the board members didn't know how Tom Welch and Dave Johnson handled the cash.
The Olympic stories are not just about Utah, of course. Here's a headline from Australia: "Juan Too Many -- Why Samaranch Should Quit." And one from the New York Post about the IOC members: "Bribesmaids!"
And there may be more headlines about other countries' bid efforts since a Japanese newswire reported the Nagano Olympic bid committee paid 50 million yen (roughly $458,000 at current rates) for the advice of a Swiss agent -- introduced to the Japanese by an IOC Executive Board member.
Newspapers around the world are editorializing for reform.
As freedom of information chairman for the national Society of Professional Journalists, Deseret News associate business editor Joel Campbell is in touch with reporters from other states. "As we've talked to (SPJ members) around the nation, they are concerned that there be openness and transparency in the Olympic process."
There is no event more public than the Olympics, Campbell says, nothing that better represents the aspirations of the common man. His fellow reporters don't think there is a place for aristocracy and secrecy in the Games.
Other board members from SPJ asked Campbell to write a column about his observations of secrecy and sunshine during the bid process in Utah.
Meanwhile, the past weeks have given Utahns a unique, if painful, opportunity to see themselves as others see them. It may be some consolation to note that Salt Lake City is not alone. Other reporters allude to embarrassments in their own cities.
On Monday, the Irish Times ran a column by a journalist named Tom Humphries. The headline reads, "Higher, faster, greasier. . . " -- an allusion to the Olympic motto of "higher, faster, stronger."
And Humphries writes, "If a dreary saint-ridden little place like Salt Lake City can nab a tidy sporting beanfest like the Winter Olympics by using dollars 400,000 worth of gifts, scholarships and favours to woo IOC members, is anything not possible for Dublin?
"dollars 400,000? Psshaw!
"dollars 400,000 isn't much more than a county councillor would expect in a brown paper bag for sticking his arm in the air on a rezoning application vote. Four hundred thousand? That wouldn't earn you so much as a 'thanks big fella' from a leading statesman. What sort of housing extension can a man build for dollars 400,000?"