Mormon Voices
Originally called the Mormon Defense League, Mormon Voices was created and launched by Scott Gordon of FAIR in August 2011, and announced at the FAIR conference held then. Their website is MormonVoices.org. The organization hopes to be a resource for journalists. The website will address common misconceptions about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-say Saints, often mistakenly called the Mormon Church. The league was organized during a period of high publicity in U.S. media, nicknamed by them, the "Mormon Moment." The Mormon Moment was born of controversy surrounding the staging of the evidently funny but profoundly obscene and irreverant Book of Mormon Musical, and the fact that two Mormon presidential candidates for the 2012 elections are Mormon, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Mormon media have been trying mightily to correct the plethora of lies and misinformation that have shown up in so-called respectable newspapers, online news sites and magazines. Never has there been a time when the relationship between Mormons and the media has been so important.
- "We hope to be a resource for journalists," said Scott Gordon, president of FAIR since 2001, "Religion writers tend to do a good job. Problems come when you get political writers or sports writers who are not as familiar with the nuances of the religion. So when you get a Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman or a Harry Reid, and someone makes a comment, the journalist may unknowingly pass on something that Mormons consider to be very bigoted, malicious or just inaccurate." [1]
The staff of the organization will initially be small; they will address errors they see in the press. They will approach the reporter directly, or if that doesn't work, then MDL may post corrections on its website or resort to sending out press releases.
- "Our primary purpose is to help people tell stories," Gordon said, "not to embarrass people into compliance with what our view of the world is. … We want to be as nice as we can and as informative as we can."
