LDS Bishop Jeremy Grisel in Lufkin, Texas, found the Romney campaign�s end an opportunity to clear up some misconceptions about church beliefs in a Lufkin Daily News article.

In Manhattan, The New York Times poked fun at LDS missionaries who didn't realize that Mitt Romney has dropped out of the presidential race. In my book, it's an unfair piece, particularly the headline: "Missionaries spread the news, but don�t read it."

The Boston Globe gave op-ed space to Whitney Johnson, a Latter-day Saint and co-founder of the investment firm Rose Park Advisors in Cambridge, Mass., to write about what the Romney campaign ending meant to him. "Instead of keeping our identity on the down low, it was brought into relief, potentially undermining a century's worth of work to feel fully accepted by our neighbors and co-workers," Johnson wrote. "In fact we have worked so hard to assimilate, we have even been able to convince ourselves that we are accepted. With Romney in the national spotlight, it has became all too clear we aren't. This is a discovery we would have preferred not to make."

Even I was interviewed by a Washington Post reporter wondering whether rank-and-file church members felt Romney's campaign was boon or bane. I think I was in a minority when I said in the long run I think it was a good thing. I invoked Brigham Young's quote I remember hearing when I was a kid: "Every time you kick Mormonism, you kick it up the stairs."

I am still convinced it's not as bad as the media says it is. Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I subscribe to what President Gordon B. Hinckley once said about negative media coverage: this will be a �blip.� But it has opened a door of opportunity. Latter-day Saints do have our work cut out for us. We can no longer circle the wagons in grand pioneer tradition and hope the media goes away. Latter-day Saints need to reach out in our communities, on the Web and in the nation�s media and be part of the discussion and dialog.

(Joel Campbell is an assistant professor in the Department of Communications at BYU. He was a reporter and editor at the Deseret Morning News for 15 years and has also worked in corporate communications. He holds a master's degree from the Ohio State University and a bachelor's degree from BYU.)