Recent News and Such

The Yearning for Zion Ranch is a compound for members of the FLDS church. FLDS stands for Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints. They are a fundamentalist sect of the Mormon Church. The news has been littered with stories about how the Texas Child Protective Services has been handling the case. Numerous papers and websites have followed the case extensively. The New York Times has an entire page full of almost daily updates on the story. Every time anything changes, they write a story. I also looked extensively into the Salt Lake Tribune’s coverage of the story. It’s actually kind of funny. They come across as very sympathetic to the members of the church. This may or may not be because Salt Lake City is the very heart of Utah, which is the stronghold of Mormonism in the United States. Their local paper has as many updates on the case as does the more respected, well known, influential New York Times. The Salt Lake Tribune is obviously writing to an audience of Mormon readers, who want to hear more about the strife of the members of the fundamentalist LDS, as they sympathize. The New York Times handles the story far more objectively, focusing on the legal implications of the actions of the Texas Child Protective Services as well as on the treatment of the children and the legality of the actions of the church members. They are reporting to a group which is much larger and more diverse. This audience also does not hold stake in the religion of the people involved. I initially read about the seizing of some 400 children in Cal Poly’s own paper. I then read a couple stories in San Luis Obispo County’s The Tribune. This piqued my interest. I have some knowledge about the Mormon faith, having studied world religions in high-school. I tend to find it interesting when legal issues clash with religion in a country where we claim to separate Church and State. So from there I looked on line. I found plenty of background information on the FLDS and in particular the Yearning for Zion Ranch on Wikipedia and on assorted news sites. There are even interviews on Youtube with women who have escaped FLDS ranches. Many of the websites for actual newspapers include short video clips, most of which show members of the FLDS sect in their 1900’s period garb. The news seems to like to highlight standout features of the sect, like the fact that most of the children have seen little to no television or the fact that all the women are required to wear high necked, long sleeved, full length dresses at all time. All of the papers excluding the Sal Lake Times jump right to these striking, even shocking features to draw attention. It works.

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