Look back: LDS on Time, Newsweek covers

Can you name the times the LDS Church, its leaders or members have been featured on the cover of U.S. national news magazines?The Mormon Media Observer takes a look back as part of a series of occasional columns on historical coverage of the LDS Church.

This list is not exhaustive, and access to the Newsweek archive is limited. But the research does show journalists' tendencies to use stereotypes and inaccuracies. At the same time, much of the reporting has bright spots and shows interesting changes over time in reporting methods, writing style and Americans' acceptance of the LDS Church and its members.In the cases where the church responded to the articles, MMO has listed links.

Time, April 7, 1930, "Heber Jedediah Grant, L.D.S."

See the cover  and read the cover story. Mormon good fortune since the trek to Utah is due in no small measure to a faith which greatly admires and encourages prosperity. Mormons irrigated, planted and built with as much persistence as they prayed. A striking fact is that the Mormons did not dig in the ground "for metallic wealth" but concentrated on husbandry. They made a desert bloom.A good Mormon, and the "good" percentage is extraordinarily large, abstains from tea, coffee, tobacco, liquor. He pays a tithe (one-tenth) of his entire income to the Church. He hearkens to the Mormon proverb "the glory of God is intelligence." Thus does the Church seek health, wealth and wisdom. Mormon health is proverbial; Utah's birth rate is generally higher, its death rate lower, its infantile sickness less than in any other State in the U. S.  Mormon wisdom is variously apparent…