Article VI Blog

Due to John's vacation and my professional demands, today's list will be brief.

Our focus is on a segment of yesterday's Political Diary, a Wall Street Journal/Opinion Journal web newsletter (subscription only - sorry!). 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."

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, Buley tied the story to Romney: "So far, the Romney campaign has apparently been silent on the matter." Then he goes on to make 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 also 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 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 makes the story about Romney. (Political Diary even ran Romney's portrait with Buley's commentary.) Clearly the "Mormon narrative" is now part and parcel of Governor Romney's campaign.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the coming months. Romney, for his part, seems to be focusing on issues that he believes will resonate with "values voters," who are overwhelmingly religious. His "Ocean" television ad, which we wrote about yesterday, is clearly part of that effort.

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