Stop the Press

November 13, 2017
In this astute but hurried work, journalist Ure (Leaving the Fold) contextualizes a 2013 crisis between newspapers in Salt Lake City within the broader history of what he considers the Mormon Church’s hostility toward an independent press. In 2013, the joint operating agreement between the Mormon-owned Deseret News and non-Mormon Salt Lake Tribune, which had been in place since 1952 and allowed the two papers to remain editorially independent but share production and distribution resources, was renegotiated in terms unfavorable to the Tribune. The renegotiation was widely interpreted as an act of retribution by the Mormon Church for the Tribune’s public criticism of the power wielded by LDS leadership in Utah. Specifically, Ure contends that the Tribune’s 2000 series on the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre—in which 120 white non-Mormon settlers were murdered by a group of Mormons and local Paiute—caused a long-simmering animosity that eventually boiled over. Ure argues that religious martyrdom, harsh punishment of dissenters, and a defensive attitude toward non-Mormons have characterized the Mormon faith from its founding, a culture merely replicated by Deseret News. Although the book exposes a little-covered incident that still influences news coverage in Salt Lake City, its breakneck pace will leave those new to the topic befuddled, and reliance on Wikipedia articles for factual information—such as the names of Joseph Smith’s wives and the origin and symbolism of the word deseret—will be a disappointment to scholars.