Michael Otterson

Michael Otterson is a former managing editor of the Public Affairs Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He had been the Church’s news media relations manager from 1997 to 2008. He had a regular blog published by the Washington Post on Church-related issues. Otterson retired in 2016.

He served as president of the London England Temple from 2016 to 2019. His wife, Catherine Berry Otterson, served as temple matron.

Otterson is a native of Liverpool, England. He converted to the Church of Jesus Christ when he was 10 years old. He said that his patriarchal blessing stated that he would be “given opportunities to defend the gospel.”[1]

Four years later, Otterson was asked by President Royden Derrick — then the president of the England Leeds Mission — to assist in responding to a critical letter about the church in a local newspaper. Otterson would spend the next 40-plus years, including eight years as managing director of the Public Affairs Department, taking the opportunity to “defend the gospel.”[2]

For 24 years he was located at Church headquarters. Prior to that he opened a public affairs office first in London, and then in Sydney, Australia. He had began his career as a journalist as a political reporter and sub-editor in Liverpool, South Australia and Canberra, and in Tokyo.