The BBC recently aired a documentary on Mormonism that, one commentator says, does the faith and the filmmaker no favors.
Buzz Feed notes that "The Mormon Candidate" is a documentary made by John Sweeney, who famously took on Scientology in 2007. You can watch a clip from the documentary here.
However, his latest film really doesn't have the same effect.
To keep things interesting, he is reduced to entering the kitchens of non-Mormon polygamists and asking them in hushed tones, "So, what's it like in the bedroom?" He also spends a lot of time with disgruntled ex-Mormons, one of whom says he's "been followed" — though he can't say for sure if these followers come from the church.
The rest of the material is well-worn terrain, including Romney's past as a Mormon bishop and evangelicals' suspicion of the faith.
An employee of BBC Worldwide said she knows of no plans to distribute the documentary in
the U.S. — something Sweeney suggested in the film is necessary.
"It's as if because of American history, there's an extra commandment: thou shalt not criticize another man's religion," he says, complaining: "There's an unwritten law: Don't mention Mormonism."
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I started watching this show with an open mind, but immediately was disappointed. First, the reporter avoided using the name of “Jesus Christ” by calling the church “The Church of the Latter-day Saints.” Within five minutes of the opening he is in Utah interviewing people that are not members of the church and he asks them very personal questions about their sex lives. It was bizarre.
LDS will complain about the multitude of errors. For example, the reporter stands in front of the Boston MA temple and says Mitt Romney was the bishop of this very church (Romney was a bishop in the 1980’s, the temple was dedicated in 2000). He mixed together clips of movies from two distinct events in Mormon theological history, he showed an image from an LDS publication called “The Pearl of Great Price” and indicated it was from the “Book of Mormon,” and he called meetinghouses temples. Non-members will not notice, but it makes one wonder if the reporter made no effort to understand the Church, was incompetent, or if these things were done deliberately.
I believe it was deliberate. He showed a Super Pac ad from a group that is pro-Gingrich to make Romney look bad, but then later he talks about the problems with the current Super PAC system in the U.S. and uses only pro-Romney Super PAC ads in the negative example. He also used theatrics such as playing scary music and then flashing pictures in a strobe light fashion to make things appeared to be sinister as he called the Church a cult. It was classic anti-Mormon propaganda, all show and no substance.
I did a little research on the reporter and this is his M.O. In 2007 he did a report on Scientology. He got more push back from them as he acknowledges in that report as they threatened to sue him if he used the ambush interviews he did on people such as Kirstie Alley and Lia Remini. The LDS Church apparently threatened no legal action after the interview with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and so unfavorable clips of Elder Holland appear in the broadcast. The only known action the Church took was to send representatives of their PR firm to the BBC with a letter assumedly expressing their concerns.
As an aside, if you are a news junkie you may remember the following from 2007. One of the Scientology spokesman got under the nerves of this reporter, John Sweeney, and he loses it. The video went viral and made all the talk shows. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxqR5NPhtLI (If the link does not work Google “Scientology: BBC Reporter loses it.”
It would have been nice if the BBC kept to their royal charter by promote education and learning. They could have done a service by objectively talking about Mitt Romney and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Instead they allowed a reporter with a questionable reputation to use unbalanced, misrepresentative sensationalism which will cause some British to fear Mitt Romney and the Church. Fortunately, it was broadcast on BBC2 and there are relatively few people that ever saw it.