Four good ideas to reinvent media

In business circles one of the buzzwords these days is the "BHAG," the Big Hairy Audacious Goal. The leader of the LDS Church's media-related companies has one of those: to reach hundreds of millions of people worldwide with light and knowledge. He's getting a good start with four good projects.

Mark H. Willes, president and CEO of Deseret Management Corp., laid out his plan Thursday at BYU. Willes wants to reinvent The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' media businesses: the Deseret News, KSL Television and Radio, Bonneville International, Deseret Book and the new internet company Deseret Digital Media.

Project 1. KSL-TV has launched a new public-affairs program on Sunday mornings that has great promise. It occupies a good time slot on KSL's schedule just before the popular "Music and the Spoken Word" program featuring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. KSL's lead news anchor, Bruce Lindsay, will lead discussions about current affairs. Willes wants these discussions on "Sunday Edition with Bruce Lindsay" to be examples of civil dialogue over difficult issues. The first edition, which aired on March 7, focused on the educational-funding crisis in Utah and the split of Utah's Jordan School District and featured a local mayor and a former governor. The program encourages online comments, even thoughtful essays and a KSL editorial set the tone for the first set of comments.

Project 2. Reinventing online comment boards. KSL.com already has launched its new comment boards, where Willes says he seeks more civil conversations. No one is banned from the comment boards, but other users can label the bad actors and filter out those who consistently are off-topic or hostile (know in the business as "trolls"). Users must register their real identity, a great improvement. The idea is that, as opposed to censorship, these boards allow individuals to select the voices they read and the community gets to rate comments on their merits. Willes promised a similar system soon will go live at the Deseret News' Web site. The system holds promise to move online dialogue away from polarizing comments and often comments that are simply masked hate speech.

Project 3. Launching a Spanish-language newspaper in Utah. Willes said the Latino community in Utah made it clear that no media were paying much attention to them. Now published three days a week, El Observador, is beginning to serve that community with professional journalism. Editor Patricia Quijano Dark has a depth of journalistic experience in New York, Europe and Latin America and has a unique vision about how the newspaper can effect the lives of Utah Latinos. The current challenge is to get people to subscribe.

Project 4. Finding the "emotional" story. Good storytelling is at the heart of good journalism, particularly when it motivates people to action. Willes wants the journalists at the LDS Church media companies to find compelling stories that touch the heart and mind. He mentioned the fine work of Deseret News reporters and photographers during the Haiti earthquake tragedy. Sending reporters to Haiti and "bringing home" the story to Deseret News readers shows an important commitment to good journalism. Willes said journalists need to "ask the right questions." He spoke of his experience with the Baltimore Sun when journalists, instead of asking "Does slavery exist?" asked, "Can someone buy a slave?" The reporters were able to buy two slaves and then return these boys to their blind mother. The series of stories turned into a much more compelling story that can move people into action.

Willes emphasized that while the Deseret Media Companies will show respect to its church owner, "We are not the church. We are not teaching, We are not testifying. The Lord needs a lot of different ways to help his children."