Meridian Magazine :: Faith and Politics: Taking Care Not to Over-React

Taking Care Not to Over-React
By Lowell Brown

News media bias is an interesting phenomenon; I personally believe it exists, and as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I think the news media often show institutional bias against our faith, and against organized religion generally. Even so, sometimes news media bias is more perception than reality, and we need to be careful about over-reacting.

An example appeared just this week in a segment of Political Diary, a Wall Street Journal/Opinion Journal subscription on-line newsletter. There Taylor Buley writes of a US News & World Report cover that "linked 'Mormons' with Masons, Scientology, Opus Dei, the Mafia and Skull & Bones in a run-down of "secret societies." The Church complained, and US News quickly apologized:

A special newsstand-only edition of our Mysteries of History series published last month makes an inadvertent reference to the Mormon faith on the cover that does not properly reflect that edition's contents. The relevant article in the issue refers to a breakaway Mormon sect, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose leader is awaiting trial for his alleged role in arranging marriages between his followers and underage girls.

While the article makes a distinction between that polygamous sect and mainstream Mormonism's rejection of polygamy, the reference to Mormons on the cover does not make this distinction. It was not our intention to imply that mainstream Mormonism is a secret society, sect, or cult, and we regret any offense that the reference to Mormons on the cover may have caused. —The Editors

Unfortunately, Mr. Buley tied the story to Mitt Romney: "So far, the Romney campaign has apparently been silent on the matter." Then Buley makes this point:

[W]hen the magazine's editors say it was not their intention to imply that Mormons are crazy, it's fair to suspect they're really saying: "We didn't mean to tell you want we really think." Given all the major newsmagazines' propensity for putting Jesus on the cover several times a year (because such issues sell), readers of other faiths might be forgiven for wondering what magazine editors really think about them too.

At least three aspects of this incident are noteworthy. First, and in fairness to US News, the magazine seems to have made the all-too-common mistake of confusing oddball polygamous sects, which claim a connection to early Mormonism, with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the legal and historical successor of the church organized by Joseph Smith in 1830, now based in Salt Lake City, Utah. To its credit, US News apologized quickly.

Second, as much as I enjoy Political Diary, Taylor Buley seems to have gotten this story wrong. He bashes US News for implying that "Mormons are crazy," but it appears that the magazine was really suggesting something about polygamous sects claiming a connection to Mormonism — and what US News was saying was that those sects are "secret," not crazy. It seems to me that the mainstream news media show enough real bias without their critics claiming bias where only a simple mistake was made — and a fairly common one at that.

Finally, it is ironic that while criticizing US News for bias in a story that does not even mention Romney, Buley turns the story into one about Romney. (Political Diary even ran Romney's photo with Buley's commentary.) Of course Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has been silent on the matter. Why would Governor Romney be expected to comment about US News confusing modern polygamous sects with his church?

The answer is probably that the "Mormon narrative" is clearly part and parcel of news media coverage of Governor Romney's campaign. It's inevitable that his faith will often come up in news stories about him; we are used to that. It is wrong, however, to tie to him stories about the church to which he happens to belong, and that are unrelated to his presidential candidacy.

I am not sure if there is a solution to this problem; time will tell. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the coming months.

Romney, for his part, seems to be paying little attention to such matters, focusing instead on issues that he believes will resonate with "values voters," who overwhelmingly tend to be religious people as well. His "Ocean" television ad, which I wrote about in Article VI Blog earlier this week, is clearly part of that effort. Watch the ad; if nothing else, it will take your mind off news media bias!