Hoping to garner some attention of her own, SLTrib columnist Rebecca Walsh decided to jump on the controversy bandwagon and fling mud.

Her article titled “Church shows true color – red” makes a plethora of unfounded accusations and unsubstantiated explanations. In a nutshell, Walsh claims that Cheney’s invite to speak at BYU flies in the face of previous statements of political neutrality.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got my own reservations about the Cheney visit. The fact of the matter is, however, that there is far too much speculation in this matter about who knows what. The First Presidency of the Church is on the board of trustees for BYU, yet we do not know the extent of their involvement in this specific invitation, or any of the background detail that would be necessary to lay blame on their doorstep as Walsh has chosen to do.

Walsh notes that the Church-owned university must surely be championing the GOP by extending this visit. However, one wonders where else Walsh might choose to fling her mud given the fact that the Church owns several other entities as well. Does Deseret Book offering one of Sean Hannity’s books on its shelves equate to a political endorsement by the Church? Does reporting favorably about Mitt Romney in the Deseret News indicate a revocation of previously asserted political neutrality?

Walsh has fallen far below the expected standards of journalism with this article. Her piece comes off as nothing more than another anti-Mormon hit piece that the Salt Lake Tribune has made itself famous for over the years.

Over the last year, I have found some very interesting things. As you can imagine, there have been plenty of articles on polygamy and in those articles there’s been plenty of intermingling of the LDS Church and various polygamist sects, which causes confusion. One headline read: “Mormon Leader Arrested on Child Sex Charges” and “Mormon Prophet Told Followers He’d Never be Caught”. The articles were obviously about Warren Jeffs, the non-Mormon leader of a polygamist sect.

I recently came across an article from an east coast paper that declared that Mormons “worship Joseph Smith over Jesus Christ”. My emails to the editor, writer of the story and publisher demanding a correction were never answered.

I don’t think that most members of the LDS Church have a clue about what the media outside of Utah is saying about the LDS Church. Unless you were really looking for these articles (like I do) you’d probably never know they exist. I would have to say that about 25% of the stories I come across referencing something related to the church are negative. I would also say that at least 5% of what I read is blatantly anti-Mormon. The rest is positive or neutral.

So I’ve partnered with Richard Miller and Connor Boyack of the More Good Foundation to bring you this blog – LDSNewsWatch.com. We hope to accomplish the following with LDSNewsWatch:

- Bring you interesting news articles about the LDS Church from around the world.

- Bring false and incorrect articles about the LDS Church to your attention.

- Compel you to act by getting you to write the editors and writers at publications that misrepresent or spread blatant lies about the LDS Church.

Please support LDSNewsWatch and the More Good Foundation by blogging about this new blog and adding it to your blog roll where appropriate.