Posted on 02/28/2002 12:37:16 PM PST by Utah Girl
The 2002 Winter Olympic Games may not have been the "Molympics," as many had feared, but the state's other religions received barely a mention by the 10,000 visiting journalists and only in passing.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on the other hand, got a boatload of free publicity.
In the days leading up to the Feb. 8 Opening Ceremony, LDS media officials received more than 2,000 phone calls as reporters from all over the world scrambled to produce at least one "Mormon" story. In the days that followed, the LDS Church was mentioned in about 100 stories a day in Germany alone, said Bruce Olsen, director of the LDS Public Affairs Department, in an interview last week.
That number declined somewhat after the Olympics' own dramas took center stage, but the church continued to be a focus of some media coverage throughout the 17-day event.
Nearly 1,300 reporters registered with the LDS Church's media resource center at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in downtown Salt Lake City. Many even made it a sort of home away from home, using the church's computers to send their stories to foreign newspapers or television stations and its televisions to follow the Games.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir was written up most often, including in three stories in The New York Times.
"The Mormon Tabernacle reminded me of so many other good places I have been, places where people share their faith, and try to find some way better than the hurly-burly of the world," wrote Times sports columnist George Vecsey. "In sporting terms, this was like going to Yankee Stadium and meeting solid citizens like Geter and Rivera and Williams in the clubhouse, knowing it is as awesome up close as it is from a distance. No disillusionment. No bad vibes."
And this from Electa Draper of the Denver Post: "Sting said he wanted to give each of his Olympic backup singers a hug, but he didn't follow through. Maybe it's because there are 360 members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir."
(The Times also wrote about Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Benny Zippel and The Dallas Morning News about the Hari Krishnas of Spanish Fork.)
The second most popular topic was the church's genealogy program, Olsen said. Besides writing about the Family History Library, about 200 journalists asked the church "to do their genealogy for them."
Other newspapers looked into the church's welfare and humanitarian services and its all-female Temple Square missionaries.
Many looked at the church's decision not to proselytize in Salt Lake City during the Games and Mormons' need for acceptance and understanding. A few took up the question of polygamy, the LDS Church's opposition to gay rights and LDS humor.
"It's the surprise of the Mormon makeover now under way at the Olympics: that Mormons can laugh at themselves," wrote Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle.
One bold writer, Hank Steuver of The Washington Post, went where most other reporters feared to tread: LDS underwear.
The LDS Church "may never again be so open and welcoming to such irreverent global scrutiny, and it's hard to think of anything else about the faith I'd rather know," Steuver wrote. "Never mind about the angel Moroni, the golden plates, the forbidden coffee and the spirit babies. Let's just move right to the good stuff. What is the garment?"
But Mormons can stop wincing. This was no expos?, just a light look at what Mormons believe are sacred reminders of their faith.
In the end, Steuver found much to admire about the LDS faithful. "Everyone looked nutty except the Mormons, who looked golden," he writes. "Underneath, the Molympics rang true and warm."
Whatever Olsen thought of Steuver's column, which appeared on Tuesday, he did estimate that 95 percent of the pieces about the church were accurate and positive.
"We feel the church has become better understood. We've put aside the stereotypes." Olsen said. "I can count on two hands the ones with gross inaccuracies."
But, true to form, LDS media officials could not resist the urge to "correct" those few mistakes. On its Web site at ldschurch.org, there is a list of articles from various publications with offending passages on the left and the correct information on the right.
| To find all articles indexed using "Olympics List" | ||||
| click here >>> | SL 2002 Olympics | <<< click here | ||
| SL 2002 home page...(To view all FR Bump Lists, click here) | ||||
INCOMING!!!!!! ];~)
Given the the quantity and intensity of the vitriol thrown at us and the ultimate source of such hatred and falsehood, it would appear that, as we know, things are progressing inevitably well in accordance with our Heavenly Father's plan...
That kind of thing made me give up trying to respond at all on the LDS threads. It got to be too time consuming after a while. I mostly just read the article now, and ignore everything after about fifteen or twenty posts.
Apart from their putative desire (which I do not "buy" as being the truth) to protect us and others from the Church's "evil" doctrine, what possible motive remains? Ignorance at best, or just plain evil, I believe....
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