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.

“”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.

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.

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.

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.