Mass Resignation Coverage

Outside of Utah, news sites are reporting a mass resignation from the LDS church that was held in downtown Salt Lake City today (the link is one version of a widely disseminated Reuters piece).

Inside Utah, there’s an odder perspective. Both major newspapers in the state are owned by the same company, which is in turn owned by the LDS church.

The Deseret News is traditionally the newspaper of Mormon faithful. The Salt Lake Tribune has traditionally been less positively disposed towards the church.

The Trib was going broke a few years ago, and was bought by the Deseret News. At the time, some people worried if Utah was losing a voice independent of the dominant culture.

Tonight, the Deseret News contains zero coverage of the mass resignation (at least that I can find).

Interestingly though, the Salt Lake Tribune has this piece posted on the home page.

For my part, kudos to both the people brave enough to act on their beliefs, and also to the LDS church for tolerating open protest.

Technorati Tags: mormon,lds,quit,mass,resignation

Comments

[D.H. Sundwall]

Actually the SL Tribune is not owned by the LDS Church. The Des News and Trib are jointly operated by a company they both own, but the papers have separate owners. See the Trib's wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salt_Lake_Tribune).

I think the Church doesn't get enough credit for some of its coverage of critics but I couldn't find any coverage of the story either. On the other hand, the whole event seemed like a grandstanding stunt by people who had left he Church some time ago and got Reuters to cooperate.

[Dave Tufte]

Sorry for not replying sooner ... holiday laziness.

I agree with all of what you've said.

1) I was not, and am not, sure of the ownership structure of the Trib. But, my understanding is that church ownership dominates the holding company.
2) I agree; I think the church deserves a lot of credit for tolerating criticism coming from the outside.
3) Yes, the event was grandstanding. But the whole point of grandstanding is to get in someone's face. Yet, living in Utah, and bringing this up in casual conversation over the last week, I've yet to talk to one person who'd heard of this protest.