A subtle change in Mormon media coverage

There is a certain logic to all of the LDS articles about Mitt Romney over these past few years that goes something like this:

Journalists observe that Romney has a "Mormon problem," that is that there remains a large group of people unwilling to vote for Romney simply because he is a Latter-day Saint.

The logical chain then prompts the question, "Why?"

The answer in many articles is often something simple like some evangelicals think Mormons are cult members.

But this prompts the question of why they think Mormonism is a cult.

Often, journalists and other writers go with something simple like "Mormons and evangelicals disagree about the nature of God."

Often, they stop there.

But something has changed in recent weeks in the tone of the coverage of the LDS faith. They seem more serious and more engaged.

Granted, this is only my impression, but I find hints of a deepening engagement to this serious question: Just what is it about Mormonism?

To be sure, I have quibbles about much of what is written in these pieces and important disagreements with it, but I have found a few articles that explore in a little more depth the heart of the Latter-day Saint religious experience — for example, revelation and the Book of Mormon.

When Romney ran four years ago and reporters wrote about the Latter-day Saints, they often highlighted glib things about my faith. The most striking thing for me was that reporters mentioned the Book of Mormon with less frequency than they mentioned the long-abandoned practice of polygamy.

This neglect of the Book of Mormon is a long-standing problem. You might find people mentioning the golden plates but not what the Book of Mormon actually teaches.

Sometime, when you have the chance, look up common Book of Mormon terms or verses in the nation's press. You will find almost no mention of what they have to say. In the 30-plus years of the Lexis-Nexis database, I found no mention of Gadianton, for example, in the major publications they use. I found fewer than five references from 2nd Nephi. (And the majority of these seemed to be calculated to make Latter-day Saints look racist.)

Indeed, I remember reading once of a journalist who summarized the content of the Book of Mormon by saying it describes that Christ will reign from Missouri. Never mind that the Book of Mormon says nothing about Missouri.