Senate Responds to an Inaccurate KSL TV Story

May 13, 2022

Senate Chief of Staff Mark Thomas issues the following statement regarding an inaccurate story by the KSL TV investigative team:

“Yesterday, KSL TV aired a story about public records requests. In the segment, the investigative reporter stated the Senate did not send a record of a specific text message a Utahn sent to Senate President Adams. However, the KSL investigative team failed to do a simple check that the phone number the individual sent the text to was sent to his home phone, a landline that cannot receive text messages. A day before the story was released, the reporter reached out. We informed the investigative reporter that the Senate appropriately followed state statute and legislative policy when responding to the records request. After receiving this information, KSL TV chose to continue with the story without conducting any further investigative review, including what number the text was sent to, making it look as though the Legislature was actively trying to hide public records from Utahns. 

“Even though we can never fully correct the misinformation shared, we understand mistakes happen, and we acknowledge KSL TV’s effort to address this misrepresentation by adding a correction to the news story. We continue to urge KSL TV to fully remove the inaccurate story, including the video and graphics, to avoid further spreading of this inaccurate story.” 

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