Further Light and Knowledge

Specifically, why do so many of them acquiesce about the use of the term Mormon? As someone else pointed out, the church simultaneously claims that they are not Mormons and yet doesn't want anyone else to use that name either. And for the most part, the media goes along with this, especially in the United States. The thing is, without an explanation as to the fundies' Mormoness, there is no way to gain the true context of the Warren Jeffs thing or other, similar cases.

You see similar stuff with the church's insistence on using Church of Jesus Christ of blah, blah in all the articles even though it's clunky and means less to the average reader than saying the Mormon Church.

it's called BRANDING... like any marketing effort... needs to be followed to specifications.

As we Foyerites know - the CoJCoLDS is the New Coke. Doesn't have the aftertaste of its mormon roots.

Well, to me it speaks to the lapdog-ism of the contemporary media. The church is rolling in dough, while it's not a large market force compared to some, it does have some key people in high places and it is a fairly organized "interest group" that is aggressive about its interests and the lapdogs won't bite it.

On the other hand it could just be the laziness of the contemporary media. They could do a very respectful, respectable job of clearing up the issues--let the church spew about who's mormon and who isn't (well, nobody technically--don't call us mormon, but don't call THEM mormon either because they have nothing to do with us). Instead they do a press-release kind of journalism and just reprint statements from the institution in question. Much easier to meet the deadline that way. None of that pesky digging, parsing, and nuancing involved.

And I have Forum Index page domination!

Jeez. That's what kind of like a small flush or something? Don't you know that it's the 24hr page that matters?!


(Edit to add begrudging respect for your analysis and say the pharmaceutical companies spend of lot of money hawking their wares during news broadcasts and would rather not write off a lucrative market like SLC with all the antidepressants and such. The press release journalism thing is spot on. They leave the real research to Matt and Trey.)

no shit.

hey belaja, dominate this!

Nice SP reference. Thanks for the giggle.

I can't be bothered to play your phallic domination games. Forum index page is more than sufficient for me.

Very true. Though as much as the mainstream media sucks, hard, most of the headlines I saw today regarding Jeffs did mention both Mormonism and polygamy. And I'm not too worried about the COB's PR efforts; based on my experience and the jokes I've heard, I'd say America is in no danger of forgetting the Mormon-polygamy connection anytime soon.

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LOL! Yeah, it's why they keep getting their garmies in such a bunch. They WISH the whole thing would just go away....

Mormonism - LITE - The LDS Church has over many years sytematically removed much of the crazyness that existed at the time of Brigham. Even the BOM was being quietly sidelined until Ezra showed up and made a load of noise!

I also know for a fact that the LDS church has a very large legal dept. I'm sure that explains a lot of it!

That's it in a nutshell--the media is a business, just like Ford or Dell. They aren't going to piss of anyone who is a potential consumer if they can avoid it.

That's it in a nutshell--the media is a business, just like Ford or Dell. They aren't going to piss of anyone who is a potential consumer if they can avoid it.

I posted this on the "other" Foyer board:

The Mormon church is so opposed to being connected to polygamy (interesting in itself) that it sends out press releases INSISTING on being called the CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS.

So now, press folks are so intimidated that whenever the term "Fundamentalist Mormon" comes up in a story, they are now saying, "Fundamentalist members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

Despite the church's efforts to distance itself from Fundies like Jeffs, the press has to explain to the public who Jeffs is. I don't see how this can be done without describing the FLDS as a break off group of the CoJCoLDS or in other words as a Mormon splinter group.

The irony to me is how worked up church members get about the claim that Mormons are not Christian, when the church officially makes the same exact argument regarding Mormon Fundamentalists' claims of being Mormon. (Fundamentalists cannot be Mormons because we are Mormons and Fundamentalists believe differently than us.)

M.P.

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Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

~Albert Einstein

History is not history unless it is the truth.

Abraham Lincoln