DiscussMormonism.com

I’ve been writing regular newspaper columns for the Deseret News for roughly eleven years. Over several of those years, I was writing three columns every two weeks — a weekly solo column, called “Defending the Faith,” on Latter-day Saint issues, and a biweekly column (co-authored, until his shocking and too-early death at the end of 2019, with my friend Bill Hamblin) on world religions. (Links to most of the former, though not quite all, are gathered here. Links to most if not all of the latter are gathered here.)

Well, that’s all come to an end.

After a month of uncertainty occasioned by the transition of the Deseret News away from a principally printed format to an electronic one — a reflection of the turbulence and change happening in the world of print journalism more generally — I received word last night that my bi-weekly column on world religions no longer fits the design of the newspaper, meaning that my tenure as a columnist for the Deseret News is now finished. The “Mormon Times” section disappeared quite a while ago, and now the “Faith” section is gone. My LDS-oriented column had already been terminated somewhat more than a year ago, and now I’m done with the bi-weekly column on religions of the world.
I won’t deny that I’m saddened and disappointed by this development. The columns had come to be a fixture in my world. Part of my regular routine.
I’m still trying to decide what I’m going to do instead, how I’m going to use the time that regularly went to the Deseret News.
Here, in the meantime, is the last column that I submitted to the editor of the Deseret News. It was never published. As you will easily see, it was written before the inauguration of President Joe Biden; it was submitted on 8 January.

Dr Exiled wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 10, 2021 1:52 pm

I wonder if the brethren have conducted any internal studies on how effective/ineffective Dr. P, Midgley, et al's brand of mopologetics really was/is? In my personal case, their empty responses sealed my decision to leave. The attack style doesn't work and is slowly being phased out.

Dr Exiled wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 10, 2021 1:52 pm

I wonder if the brethren have conducted any internal studies on how effective/ineffective Dr. P, Midgley, et al's brand of mopologetics really was/is? In my personal case, their empty responses sealed my decision to leave. The attack style doesn't work and is slowly being phased out.

One also wonders if plagiarism has anything to do with this ouster? Perhaps discovery of it some time ago set the wheels in motion, with the DN editors not wanting to bring attention to their lapse in judgment but still wanting to excise the cancer at some point?

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 10, 2021 10:05 pm

Hi Mr. Peterson,

Thanks for stopping by to get your daily dose of truth. Please feel free to answer on your blog, as you are wont to do, this question. Did the Deseret News address your plagiarisms that were published in their paper?

- Doc

The Church, they say, is embarrassed and repulsed by my mendacity, depravity, and sheer viciousness. And, so, I’m being suppressed. (I’m also, it’s been suggested, being forced into early retirement from Brigham Young University, effective this coming 1 July. After all, who ever heard of anybody retiring, in order to pursue other interests, at the young age of 68?). How much longer will it be, they ask, before the hammer of the General Authorities’ wrath falls upon the Interpreter Foundation?

Well, that’s an excellent question. Keep watching!

In the meantime, though, I want to suggest some alternative or supplemental reasons for the end of my Deseret News columns, reasons that, based upon my many years of experience with this particular tiny coven of critics, seem likely to appeal very powerfully to them:
•The editorial leadership of the Deseret News was intimidated into its decision by the positioning of one or more of the Rothschild family’s Jewish space lasers high above its offices in Salt Lake City.
•The injection of microscopic space aliens into their arms during “vaccination” against the fake-news COVID scamdemic has affected their decision-making.
•It’s part of a larger overall plot — including, for instance, but not limited to the hatching of a phony “pandemic,” the consequent suspension or scaling back of sacrament meetings, the closure of temples worldwide — in order to restrict my contacts with other Latter-day Saints and my capacity to reach them.
•The editors are taking their orders from George Soros or the Koch Brothers or the Learned Elders of Zion or the Illuminati or little devices implanted in the backs of their necks or the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez or some combination or other of the foregoing. Or from somebody else, yet to be identified, who likes to sit in a massive, metallic, brightly lit complex somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, wearing a monocle and a grey Nehru jacket. Or in his lair high in the Alps. Stroking a white cat.

Other suggestions as to possible reasons for the end of my Deseret News column will be welcomed.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... moses.html

Lem wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 10, 2021 10:18 pm

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 10, 2021 10:05 pm

Hi Mr. Peterson,

Thanks for stopping by to get your daily dose of truth. Please feel free to answer on your blog, as you are wont to do, this question. Did the Deseret News address your plagiarisms that were published in their paper?

- Doc

Well, he has worked very hard to avoid the plagiarism issue:

The Church, they say, is embarrassed and repulsed by my mendacity, depravity, and sheer viciousness. And, so, I’m being suppressed. (I’m also, it’s been suggested, being forced into early retirement from Brigham Young University, effective this coming 1 July. After all, who ever heard of anybody retiring, in order to pursue other interests, at the young age of 68?). How much longer will it be, they ask, before the hammer of the General Authorities’ wrath falls upon the Interpreter Foundation?

Well, that’s an excellent question. Keep watching!

In the meantime, though, I want to suggest some alternative or supplemental reasons for the end of my Deseret News columns, reasons that, based upon my many years of experience with this particular tiny coven of critics, seem likely to appeal very powerfully to them:
•The editorial leadership of the Deseret News was intimidated into its decision by the positioning of one or more of the Rothschild family’s Jewish space lasers high above its offices in Salt Lake City.
•The injection of microscopic space aliens into their arms during “vaccination” against the fake-news COVID scamdemic has affected their decision-making.
•It’s part of a larger overall plot — including, for instance, but not limited to the hatching of a phony “pandemic,” the consequent suspension or scaling back of sacrament meetings, the closure of temples worldwide — in order to restrict my contacts with other Latter-day Saints and my capacity to reach them.
•The editors are taking their orders from George Soros or the Koch Brothers or the Learned Elders of Zion or the Illuminati or little devices implanted in the backs of their necks or the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez or some combination or other of the foregoing. Or from somebody else, yet to be identified, who likes to sit in a massive, metallic, brightly lit complex somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, wearing a monocle and a grey Nehru jacket. Or in his lair high in the Alps. Stroking a white cat.

Other suggestions as to possible reasons for the end of my Deseret News column will be welcomed.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... moses.html

You'll note, however, not a single comment about whether his plagiarism became an issue. I'm guessing he is terrified of opening that door.

Dr Moore wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 11, 2021 1:24 am

I’m sure it was a decision based on page clicks and ad impressions. If I read correctly, a whole segment of the online paper went away. No reason to think the move was based on more than that, is there?