Fake news and M2C/SITH

The current clamor about the federal budget and government shut downs reminds us of how fake news is generated in the media, but it also reminds us of how certain LDS scholars have created fake news of their own.

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Thanks to Jeff Lindsay, Brant Gardner, and Royal Skousen, anyone who is paying attention can see that the entire M2C/SITH narrative is fake news, a pile of sophistry and misdirection based on the underlying assumption that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery lied about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.

Royal spelled it out when he articulated the end point of SITH:

"Joseph Smith’s claim that he used the Urim and Thummim is only partially true; and Oliver Cowdery’s statements that Joseph used the original instrument while he, Oliver, was the scribe appear to be intentionally misleading."

Over the years, Brant and Jeff have spelled it out for M2C in various ways through their books and blog posts, respectively. Scripture Central (Jack Welch), the Interpreter (Dan Peterson), and FAIRLDS (Scott Gordon) have spent decades trying to persuade Latter-day Saints to reject the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah/Ramah, but they succeed only to the extent they can keep Latter-day Saints ignorant.

And thanks to the Internet, the M2Cers and SITH scholars no longer have monopoly power over the sources of information. Latter-day Saints around the world can read the Joseph Smith Papers and other authentic sources for themselves. They can even go to www.mobom.org.

This all reminds us of how fake news is created by the media, such as this account by Sharyl Attkisson:

Sharyl Attkisson 

@SharylAttkisson

Quick story about govt. shutdowns and the theatrics behind them.

One year when I was reporting at CBS News during a govt. shutdown, I think 2013, we were sincerely searching for real life impact. When we couldn't find any, *that* should have been part of the story. Instead, we kept trying to create the appearance of an impact.

It wasn't really trying to be dishonest. It was, in my retrospective view, because the general editorial idea for the story was to show how bad the "Republican" shutdown was for ordinary Americans, and the answer simply couldn't be that it wasn't.

I've written quite a bit about this but we, as journalists, too often "decide" the story in advance and shape the facts to fit our narrative, rather than gathering information and letting that tell the story, whatever it may be.

[This is what Jeff and Brant accuse me of doing, which is fun. I invite everyone to compare our different approaches to the evidence and see who is setting out the facts and then distinguishing the facts from assumptions, inferences, and theories. They won't do that, and it's obvious why they won't.]

Anyway, the Ds were blaming Rs for the shutdown, so we were calling Ds and the Obama administration for ideas to report what was the real impact.

Taking our cue, these officials fabricated impact that we could report. For example, they cordoned off outdoor public monuments in Washington DC. We knew and even discussed in the newsroom that this made no sense. These monuments weren't "manned" to begin with. The only reason to cordon them off from the public was so that visiting tourists would see the "impact" of the shutdowns and the news media would have something to take pictures of and interview people about.

There are other examples but this is the one I remember the most.