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Comment by grubb | Hacker News Reader

Just my two cents: I grew up in Utah and did my undergraduate degree there. The Salt Lake Tribune is a great newspaper (I subscribed while living in the state) and it has been rough watching them downsize and lose some great staff over recent years. I am very much of the opinion that good local journalism is a necessity for holding people accountable. For example: the work the Salt Lake Tribune received a Pulitzer for [0]. Anything to help good local journalism continue and survive is nothing but a win in my view.

[0] https://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/05/07/salt-lake-tribune-win...

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I’m still here and this is incredibly important for our community. The tribune is the only major news outlet not owned by the LDS church, and is an important tempering force. Over the years they’ve given up some of their autonomy due to joint operating agreements with LDS Church owned Desert News, but without them salt lake would be a large metro without a non-church controlled newspaper. Which is really strange to write down.

Salt lake looks poised to elect its first LDS mayor in something like 50 years today which I think speaks volumes to the weakening of slc secular news sources. One could argue that it’s due to the modernization of the church on some key issues, but based on the coverage of the candidates, I’m not so sure.

On a national scale, I’m really hopeful this trend continues. Newspapers do incredibly important work on “boring” local issues that no one else is able to do.

> The tribune is the only major news outlet not owned by the LDS church, and is an important tempering force.

In Utah. Let's make sure that distinction is clear.

That was plenty clear from the context.

Do you think people are confused that most major metropolitan areas are not controlled by religious groups, or that Salt Lake City is in Utah?

In my experience, most people outside of the USA are not very familiar with anything between NY and LA. Usually I have to tell people, I live in Oregon which is north of California. Oh, California, yes we've heard of California. I doubt the majority of the world has even heard of Utah or has any concept of where it is or that SLC is the capital of the state.

Utah... is that the place with the large rocks in the desert? Lots of mormons? It shows up from time to time. Oregon I have no idea. Only thing that comes to mind is the Oregon Trail?

Oregon was the end of the Oregon Trail, but the trail itself extended 2000+ miles back to Missouri in the center of the continent.

> Salt lake looks poised to elect its first LDS mayor in something like 50 years today which I think speaks volumes to the weakening of slc secular news sources.

Or maybe, rather than signs of weakening secular news control, they're both signals of the success of LDS Church. Living in Toronto until recently, I have with increasing regularity, met LDS proselytizers without trying. Business hotels in suburban office parks in Florida now have their book. To me it just seems like a very successful church. It wouldn't surprise me if they were winning back the mindshare even in urban centres, given the cultural discomfort being experienced in urban North America right now.

> On a national scale, I’m really hopeful this trend continues. Newspapers do incredibly important work on “boring” local issues that no one else is able to do.

Indeed, for local publications it makes a lot of sense; though I am concerned about the potential effect it could have on some stories. For-profit news purchased directly by readers has some redeeming qualities, some of the time, in terms of incentive structure.

>Business hotels in suburban office parks in Florida now have their book.

AFAIK, Marriotts have always had it. The Marriott family is Mormon.

It feels perverse to speak of a churches success as a business rather than success through the spiritual satisfaction of its members. It belittles the "good word" and treats it as corporate decor.

Certainly some of the LDS church's evangelistic reach is enabled by business acumen. Their holdings are worth billions on the stock market.

From 2012: https://web.archive.org/web/20120713021925/http://www.busine...

From 2018: https://kutv.com/news/local/mormonleaks-says-new-documents-l...

The Vatican owns ~15% of the value listed on Italian stock exchanges and somewhere north of $10 billion (US) in total wealth. That's just the vatican - the largest regional subsidiaries are worth more (Catholic Church Germany is about $25 billion).

LDS has somewhere around $65 billion in wealth.

International religious organizations are absolutely businesses. Profit may not be their primary purpose, but they have their fingers in all sorts of business-like enterprises - real estate, stocks, etc.

Do you have any sources for these numbers? They seem low given the value of works of art and real estate held by the church; I'm just curious what the $10B USD figure includes.

That seems low given the amount of property they control and their international foothold, along with the amount of time they have had to acquire their wealth.

Shame on me... I didn't check the date on the source - the Vatican number was taken from a Time Magazine article from 1965. I came up near the top of the Google results and it never crossed my mind that Time published articles that far back.

Regardless of the size of the assets of these organizations, the parent's point is still valid that their success should not be measured in $s. So the Vatican has $10B in wealth, does that mean that they are successfully leading people to heaven? I say these numbers have little to do with what the Vatican exists for. If anyone in the Vatican thinks otherwise, I would say their priorities are off. (I speak about the Vatican rather than the LDS church because I know more about it, being Catholic myself.)

Probably because the "good word" is to a large extent, in fact, corporate decor: https://read.cesletter.org/

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