As a member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy™, I am obligated to sniff out media bias wherever it may lie.
This finely-honed skill helped in my assertion that the Associated Press’ coverage of Elder Oak’s talk was in large part to blame for the civil-rights analogy kerfuffle this week. In anticipation of his talk, Elder Oaks gave the A.P. an interview and his talk’s text to accompany its coverage of his address. With his cooperation and a despite a very substantive talk, the A.P. reporter framed a news story based on one sentence aiming for maximal controversy. And it worked.
The A.P.’s coverage is not too surprising. I’ve long thought it covered the Church unfairly, (recent egregious example). But this week, it has also been interesting to see the local Utah media reaction behind the scenes.
The City Weekly jumped on the Deseret News for not covering the civil-rights analogy issue as did all the other news outlets who followed the A.P.’s lead. In its view (and by way of Twitter, the view of other area reporters), if the D.N. didn’t follow the A.P.’s lead, it wasn’t being fair and balanced. So much for original reporting.
Most remarkable was another post at the City Weekly about an executive news producer at the local Salt Lake Fox affiliate, Fox 13 who violated the Church’s embargo with a tweet. Perhaps not a big deal but her blog about her phone call with the Church’s Public Affairs office and her feelings towards the Church as a former member and its involvement in Proposition 8 is quite an eye opener (to read a sanitized version just read the Weekly’s version, there you can click through to read the very crude and psychodrama-rich original if you dare, but beware). Quite astonishing to realize that this is someone who deals with and reports on the Church as a journalist.
Fox 13 news doesn’t strike me as biased, or anti-LDS. I do think that it did stoke up the controversy a bit online by tweeting up the story over and over and over and over and over and over again (and no, Elder Oaks did not claim that “Mormon backlash after Prop. 8 [was] similar to treatment of Southern blacks”). But the controversy probably sent them pretty good traffic.
As for their news producer, it’s nice to see news folk let it all hang out and not pretend that they are impassive robots unburdened by the silly squabbles the rest of us mere mortals deal with. Perhaps in such a small news operation she can’t recuse herself from stories when she loathes the subjects she covers. But for her own mental health it might be for the best.
As for the City Weekly, its interesting to read some of the local inside baseball of the journalism scene. But after reading its own coverage and the tweets from other reporters, its laughable to single out the Deseret News as unbalanced. And soliciting for more LDS Public Affair horror stories to confirm your own biases? That’s not high-minded journalism, it’s called blogging. Join the club.
Even more see, “Dallin H. Oaks: Calling for fair reading, fair thinking, fair commentary“
(Possibly) Related posts:
Tags: anti-mormons, Dallin H. Oaks, journalism, media bias, utah
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David:
The LDS Church clearly wanted to get the maximum press coverage of Elder Oak’s speech. The Church:
1. Arranged an interview with Elder Oak before the actual speech was given, with video clips of the interview made available to the press.
2. Had a press release regarding the speech ready.
3. Provided a copy of the speech before the actual speech was given.
4. Provided (at a later time) a video of the entire speech.
Elder Oak even appeared to acknowledge the LDS Church’s intent to affect public opinion by indicating the reach of his speech would be well beyond the BYU Idaho audience.
Because of the substantial efforts to publicize what Elder Oak had to say, the LDS Church should not not complain about the coverage of the speech by the Associated Press. A good reporter would look for the most newsworthy element of the speech in writing the newspaper article. Given that Elder Oak’s speech was not specifically related to events that happened recently and did not announce new policy direction, appointments etc., the most newsworthy aspect of the speech (at least to non-Mormons) was Elder Oak’s civil-rights analogy.
It may be disappointing to some that the balance of Elder Oak’s speech did not receive as much coverage; however, newspapers and television reporters are supposed to cover the news. Elder Oak’s analogy regarding civil rights clearly fits in that category.
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“newspapers and television reporters are supposed to cover the news”
That’s laughable. Newspapers and television reporters work for for-profit companies that need ratings to sell advertising and make money. They were not looking for the most news worthy element of the speech, they were looking for the most easily distorted element to drive ratings.
It’s not just that news organizations reported on his talk, it’s that they did so by leading with out-of-context headlines and in some cases blatantly misrepresenting his message. That’s not news — that’s lying.
Frankly, It’s kind of staggering for me to hear anyone defend the news coverage on the issue. It wouldn’t have been difficult for reporters to say something like “LDS leader claims that religious freedom is being threatened”. They intentionally made it sound as though he compared Mormon involvement in Prop 8 with the entire civil rights movement when all he said was that in both cases. voter intimidation occurred (which is 100% factual).
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Stephen,
The church is NOT complaining about the coverage. I haven’t heard the church issue any complaint. And even so, it’s not the coverage, it’s the skewed, incorrect commentary within that coverage that’s the problem.
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Also, I had the same thought about City Weekly: Nice blogging, guys.
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Stephen,
I’m sorry if you thought I was saying that the Church didn’t want any publicity. As you clearly show, the Church clearly wanted and prepared for some attention from the media. In fact the great lengths that you mention show that the Church did its best to control the message as best as it could.
Obviously the A.P. went in a direction that the Church probably would not have preferred (as E. Oaks’ Q&A video broaching the civil-rights analogy shows) but that’s not my really point here.
From the tweets I’ve followed to the City Weekly blog posts, many local reporters, including some within the Deseret News, believe it is censorship if the DN does not follow the A.P.’s lead by making the story’s hook focusing on the civil-rights controversy. The D.N. played the story straight, not artificially forcing a controversy and allowing critics to have a platform to take swings at the Church.
Which is sort of unnecessary because a talk that discusses gay activists and the SSM debate should have been controversial enough. And as it turns out, the DN did include a follow up story on that controversy: “Gay groups disagree with Elder Oaks.”
I don’t think that’s censorship. Furthermore, I don’t understand the great suffering that the Fox news producer endured or why that should spur action to gather more “horror stories” of those who to deal with the Church P.A. folks.
It seems clear that they have their agenda and the Church has its own. They can’t seem to respect that but demand that the DN and perhaps even the Church play by their rules.
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I wish it was only the A.P. with such a bias. These kinds of reactions have been rippling through the ‘nacle as well. Sigh.
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Elder Oaks is to blame for including the analogy. There was clear voter intimidation on both sides of Prop 8, and to imply that only one side received intimidation is ignorant.
Since he mentioned that gay civil rights is alleged, it makes it fair game to go after any comments he makes in regards to his speech.
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My take from the fracas is that our very intelligent leaders are attempting as best they can to inoculate the conversation in front of findings from California investigative authorities. This is just a small breeze compared to the storm brewing on the horizon.
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Interesting to read the venom spitting Fox 13 producer Monica Bielanko’s blog posting. Obviously someone that got burned by the church that distrusts and hates anything coming out of it. Not surprising really. Personally I’d recommend counseling. That kind of burning hatred isn’t healthy.
Nevertheless, at least the Fox affiliate has some journalistic integrity. The AP was given a pre-speech interview and still ran with ball to the opposite end zone.“”A good reporter would look for the most newsworthy element of the speech in writing the newspaper article.”"
I guess that’s one way of looking at it. More likely you mean:
“”A clever report would look for the most incendiary element of the speech that can then be pulled out of context for writing the newspaper article. It’s a sure way to generate traffic!”"I mean honestly, what else does the AP have to run with here? A story about God and love, and religious freedoms? Not sure any of that computes with the AP reporter. The stuff about article VI and XIV of the constitution probably just confused him.
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Joseph, I can’t and won’t defend what the Fox news producer said on her blog about the Elder Oak’s speech. News personnel (including news producers) should be reporting–not making–news.
In interpreting my earlier post, you also stated:
“More likely you mean: `A clever report[er] would look for the most incendiary element of the speech that can then be pulled out of context for writing the newspaper article. It’s a sure way to generate traffic!””
Actually, Joseph, as I said earlier, the most newsworthy aspect of Elder Oak’s speech (at least to non-Mormons) was the civil-rights analogy. Elder Oak clearly knew that his analogy would be controversial because—in his taped interview given before his actual speech was presented—he defended his civil rights analogy. That shows an apparent attempt to be controversial to get news coverage.
However, what the take-away message of this matter should be is that when you are conducting a media campaign (with a high-profile speech, associated videotaped interview and press release) and you don’t own the media that will be reporting on that media campaign, you cannot ensure what the final message will be. That is simply how it works.
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Well the basic problem is that Elder Oak’s speech contained the offending line and associated (somewhat specious) argument. At the most basic level Elder Oak’s premise is that the Freedom of Religion clause should get the Church off the hook for pushing *public policy* which runs directly counter to the Equal Protection Under the Law clause of the Constitution. Most U.S. citizens probably have few Constitutional issues with the existence of the LDS Church, or even with its members following its doctrine, but when the Church pushes its belief system down other people’s throats by sponsoring laws, which many others feel are unconstitutional, conflict is going to occur.
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An article was just posted on The Salt Lake Tribune’s website that should not add any fuel to the fire of those fearing an anti-Mormon bias in the media. The article–which is entitled “Religious liberty and gay marriage: Is Oaks right? Yes and no;
Oaks aftermath » There are some real concerns, but they may not be the ones making the headlines” (see http://www.sltrib.com/faith/ci_13611733# )–provides a broader overview of the issues raised in Elder Oak’s speech, and the related issues of the inherent conflict between civil rights, marriage equality and religious freedom of those on the more conservative end of the spectrum. Definitely worth a read.
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