Loading ...Changes at papers owned by Mormon Church, Rev. Moon
flockwoodTwo of the three largest newspapers affiliated with religious organizations, the (Salt Lake) Deseret News and the Washington Times, appeared to be making sweeping changes this week.
The Deseret News, owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, announced that it is cutting its staff roughly in half.
Half a continent away, there were reports that the Washington Times will be sold to investors loyal to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon — for one dollar. [The group of Moon associates currently running the paper were apparently unwilling to keep subsidizing it in perpetuity.]
Meanwhile, in Boston, the daily Christian Science Monitor has transitioned from print to the internet.
A question I’ve been pondering — the U.S. doesn’t have a Catholic paper, a Southern Baptist paper or a United Methodist paper. Why didn’t the nation’s largest religious bodies failed to build daily newspapers of their own?
A second question — The Mormon Church, as far as I can tell, is one of the most successful institutions in America numerically and financially. Why would it make such sharp cuts to its paper when the church, itself, appears to be flourishing?
September 2nd, 2010 at 7:45 am
The Mormons have a solid geographic center, in Salt Lake City. Christian Science was established in Boston, a large, influential, and literate city. I wonder if that is a factor, having a strong base from which to operate.
There are many Methodists in the USA but the population spread quite evenly around the country. A few years ago I saw a report which mentioned that there are United Methodist churches in more US counties than any other denomination, including the larger Catholic and Southern Baptist churches.
And there’s also the matter of readership. Methodism was very much a frontier religion. Lots of adherents didn’t have easy access to newspapers and couldn’t read them anyway. I expect that many Catholics and Baptists were likewise uneducated folk. In order to flourish a newspaper needs readers.
September 7th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Mormon, Inc. is much more interested in worldly power than Christianity is. Observe their latest marketing/branding campaign. It goes way back for them. Their original plan was to build a literal kingdom.
September 8th, 2010 at 10:38 am
Since the changes of FCC laws a few years back regarding ownerships of news outlets in a given market (I don’t know all the specifics), the Deseret News can now combine its news gathering and writing staff with KSL TV, the local Salt Lake NBC affiliate which is also owned by the Mormon Church. So, they are cutting their staff and moving in with KSL. I guess the Deseret News will essentially become a print version of KSL’s Eyewitness News at 10:00. Sad, really, but the newspaper has been bleeding money for a few years now, from what I hear. They did announce a whole new editorial board for the Deseret News, though. Not sure if that was meant to reassure us.