Skip to content
Main Street Plaza

A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.

Main Street Plaza

A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.

the elusiveness of the LDS Newsroom

Alan, October 15, 2010May 17, 2011

You know what’s interesting is that the LDS Newroom is currently in beta format, which means some old articles don’t exist anymore. For example, Bruce Hafen’s speech to Evergreen last year is gone. There’s this page that says Hafen gave a speech, but then you can’t access the actual speech anymore. Maybe it’s just a temporary issue of the beta, but other old links actually redirect to new URLs, so I guess we’ll see.

The Oaks/Wickman interview from 2006 is still there…and the various articles about the level of support the Church offers the gay community, such as last November’s support of the SLC ordinances and the recent response to HRC. My guess is that under the auspices of a new site design (which uses automated search for articles that I’m guessing is not entirely automated), they’re cleaning up in other ways, too ugly URLs.

I really like their extended statement about the history of the PR department, the “elusiveness” of media today (aka the Internet) and the diversity of public Mormon personalities (celebrities and Mormon.org) and how this all relates to the “prophetic voice.” But if indeed the Newsroom is for “Church-watchers,” it’s kind of frustrating when it comes to the sourcing of articles that don’t exist anymore. You really have to add the notation “(accessed on this date),” because you never know when they’ll decide to correlate change the URLs.

With that said, I kinda like the new Newsroom.

COB Testimony

Post navigation

Previous post
Next post

Related Posts

See? There’s no problem. (TW continues…)

September 22, 2008

Once Grandma and Grandpa’s new business was cleared off the table and put away, I started showing everyone how to fold the little silver slips of paper into birds. I figured that it would be better to keep it simple and have everyone fold the same animal. With so many…

Read More

Mormon Stories and John Dehlin’s Mystery Cycle

December 22, 2025December 27, 2025

Over the past five years or so, I’ve tried every so often to track down a particular conversation here at MSP about one of John Dehlin’s failures to tamp down a crisis he created for himself. Something about it nagged at me, and I wanted to review it. I was…

Read More
Public Relations

In My Day it was Paul H. Dunn

November 8, 2023November 8, 2023

Recently Mormonland has been crowded with stories about Tim Ballard, the LDS founder and former CEO of Operation Underground Railroad (OUR). Once a model Latter-day Saint and possible candidate for Romney’s senate seat, Ballard is now excommunicated and facing charges of sexual assault. Reports also reveal he frequented bars and…

Read More

Comments (9)

  1. L. Kirkland says:
    October 15, 2010 at 8:58 am

    Thank you for the feedback and for pointing out that broken link (which has already been fixed). Yes. It is a redirect issue.

    Reply
  2. Alan says:
    October 15, 2010 at 10:16 am

    Hi, thanks for the quick response!

    Reply
  3. profxm says:
    October 15, 2010 at 6:12 pm

    Did we really just get someone from the LDS Newsroom posting on MSP? How frackin’ cool is that?!? 😉 Someone at the COB reads MSP!

    FYI, I’ve done some research using press releases on the newsroom website and always “print-to-PDF” copies just in case something goes missing. I’ve had too many news stories disappear on me (from other sites as well, including the SLC Tribune) to not do that anymore.

    Reply
  4. Chino Blanco says:
    October 15, 2010 at 6:22 pm

    I think this post just won some kind of prize. Between the title and the lightning response in comment #1, it’s too perfect.

    Reply
  5. chanson says:
    October 16, 2010 at 2:24 am

    lol, too funny!

    I’m not surprised at all that the COB is reading this blog. Hey, we provide valuable information about what’s up in the less-believing side of town! I’m kind of surprised to get a comment from the LDS newsroom, though, because I thought they were pretending to ignore this blog. I guess I was wrong.

    L. Kirkland — thanks for stopping by, and please feel free to comment on our discussions here! 😀

    Reply
  6. Jonathan Blake says:
    October 16, 2010 at 3:01 pm

    Maybe they use Google Alerts set to “LDS Newsroom”? Anyway, there’s always the Internet Archive with it’s Wayback Machine for dead links.

    Reply
  7. Alan says:
    October 16, 2010 at 4:37 pm

    Maybe they use Google Alerts set to LDS Newsroom?

    Yeah, not to be pessimistic, but I think this only proves that someone at the COB read one entry on this blog, once. Perhaps there will be a domino effect, though. =)

    Reply
  8. chanson says:
    October 16, 2010 at 10:53 pm

    Look, even my personal blog has gotten lots of hits from the COB. I haven’t looked at MSP’s logs carefully, so I can’t tell you how frequently they visit here. It would be an intelligent strategy for them to read this blog to get info on DAMU trends (while pretending that we’re beneath their notice). OTOH, I never accused them of having an intelligent strategy before, so maybe they don’t. 😉

    Reply
  9. Pingback: Why Cultural Mormonism doesn’t exist | Wheat and Tares

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Mormon Alumni Association Books

Follow us on Substack!

Please use the "no pledge" option because we are not set up (or even want) to get money from Substack.


donna * monya * johnny * holly * chanson


Brodie Awards!!!


X-Mormon of the Year!!

  • 2025: Rebecca Bibliotheca!!
  • 2024: Nemo the Mormon!!
  • 2023: Adam Steed!!
  • 2022: David Archuleta!!
  • 2021: Jeff T. Green!!
  • 2020: Jacinda Ardern!!
  • 2019: David Nielsen!!
  • 2018: Sam Young!!
  • 2017: Savannah!!
  • 2016: Jeremy Runnells!!
  • 2015: John Dehlin!!
  • 2014: Kate Kelly!!
  • 2013: J. S. Anderson & M. Ferguson!!
  • 2012: David Twede!!
  • 2011: Joanna Brooks!!
  • 2010: Monica Bielanko!!
  • 2009: Walter Kirn!!

  1. chanson on Thanks Gloria!September 20, 2026

    @Donna -- I wouldn't say you were one of the "dumb girls". You were a young starry-eyed convert who thought…

  2. chanson on New church schedule! Good? Bad? Inspired?September 19, 2026

    @Holly -- yes, I have absolutely felt that parallel in my life. I was fortunate enough to be able to…

  3. Holly on New church schedule! Good? Bad? Inspired?September 16, 2026

    You're no doubt right. Living in Trump's America right now feels to me the way I felt about the church…

  4. Donna Banta on Thanks Gloria!September 15, 2026

    There were years of cognitive dissonance, at least in my case. I told myself that the church was a compassionate,…

  5. chanson on New church schedule! Good? Bad? Inspired?September 14, 2026

    I can't help but feel like in today's church you wouldn't even have had the opportunity to mention Santa's not…

8: The Mormon Proposition Acceptance of Gays Add new tag Affirmation angry exmormon awards Book Reviews BYU comments Dallin H. Oaks DAMU disaffected mormon underground Dustin Lance Black Ex-Mormon Excommunicated exmormon faith Family feminism Gay Gay Love Gay Marriage Gay Relationships General Conference Happiness Homosexual Homosexuality LDS LGBT LGBTQ Link Bomb missionaries Modesty Mormon Mormon Alumni Association Mormonism motherhood peace poetry politics Polygamy priesthood ban Secularism Sunstone temple

Subscribe


 

©2026 Main Street Plaza | WordPress Theme by SuperbThemes