Utah will benefit from hosting the 2002 Winter Games -- scandal or no scandal, USA Today founder Al Neuharth concluded after a panel discussion on the Olympics and the media.
"I've seen Olympics come and go. I've see scandals come and go," Neuharth told the students, professors and others gathered for the discussion Wednesday in the traveling NewsCapade exhibit at the Utah Capitol.By 2002, he said, the public will be focused on the competition instead of the scandal, "and the media probably will belatedly recognize that's the frame of mind of the public and then the media may follow that.
"More importantly, I'm absolutely certain that Salt Lake City, this area and the state of Utah long-term will benefit immensely from the Olympics being here in 2002."
That "despite the fact that the Justice Department drags its feet on everything, despite the fact that at this time Salt Lake City still is referred to in the media as a scandal city."
The media's handling of the Salt Lake bid scandal was the focus of the panel discussion among International Olympic Committee Vice President Anita DeFrantz, Salt Lake Organizing Committee Senior Vice President Shelley Thomas and Salt Lake Tribune Editor Jay Shelledy.
The speakers said the scandal won't be over until the U.S. Department of Justice completes its investigation into allegations that Salt Lake bidders tried to buy IOC votes with more than $1 million in cash and gifts.
But Thomas said she did not believe the Games would be crippled by the scandal, and called it a "godsend for the Olympic movement and the IOC" despite the strain put on the Salt Lake Organizing Committee.
Besides a series of reforms including a ban on visits to bid cities, she said the scandal forced the IOC to open itself up to media scrutiny.
"Sometimes aggressive coverage is good for everybody," Thomas said, joking that, of course, she'd like to write the stories such coverage produces about SLOC and determine where they end up in the newspaper.
DeFrantz said her experience has been that the media seldom get all the details of a story right. The scandal put pressure on many reporters to produce stories "whether accurate or not," she said.
Shelledy said his newspaper "could have been a little more aggressive" in its coverage, especially early on. "Also, Utah is a very accepting state of authority, not directly challenging people in high places," he said.
The NewsCapade, a mobile exhibit of the Arlington, Va., Newseum, will remain at the Capitol through Saturday. The two tractor-trailer trucks are open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., and admission is free.
The Newseum and NewsCapade are funded by The Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan foundation dedicated to "free press, free speech and free spirit for all people."
The Freedom Foundation was founded by Neuharth, who is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Gannett Co. Inc.