How One National News Reporter Took a Fresh Look at Latter-Day Saint Missions and Sports Performance
Two weeks ago, this newsletter considered media misrepresentations of Latter-day Saints.
This time out, let’s celebrate a fresh look at a media representation of Latter-day Saint missions.
A Wall Street Journal reporter recently wrote an excellent piece about two returned missionaries who have qualified to represent the United States in the marathon at the Olympics this summer.
Her opening paragraph drew in readers:
“When Conner Mantz and Clayton Young were starting out as elite distance runners, they did something strange. They stopped competing for two years. They halted all serious training. And they each gained about 30 pounds.”
The headline writer added an additional tease to what the story would offer: “They Were Elite Runners. Then They Stopped Training, Gained 30 Pounds — and Got Faster.”
The reporter, Rachel Bachman, is outstanding. She made two very interesting choices with this story.
The first was an admirable display of curiosity on her part. She chose to ask a refreshing question about how spending time away from a sport, or any other passion, might benefit someone mentally and emotionally.
She posed the question to Brad Stulberg, whose book “Master of Change” explores identity shifts over time. He told her that having a life outside sports “can relieve self-imposed performance pressure,” she wrote.
“I find I get a lot less nervous than I did in high school,” confirmed Mantz, one of the returned missionary runners. “I enjoy running a whole lot more.”
The second choice Bachman made was not to ask Mantz and Young why they made the choice to serve their mission. Or, maybe she did ask but eventually chose not to include it their reasoning in the story.
That could frustrate some readers. The headline and entire story turn on the idea that Mantz and Young made a “strange” decision, so why not give them a sentence or two to explain it? And one of the major weaknesses of many American journalists today is faith reporting.
For example, a recent Deseret News story noted a couple of cringeworthy examples of journalists who don’t understand religion. One happened when a person of faith told a reporter that the answer to a question came back to the book of Ephesians, and the reporter asked who had published that book and where he could get a copy.
But Bachman wasn’t making a choice to avoid faith. She chose to focus on that idea of the benefits of time away from a sport or time spent on other pursuits. She actually spoke to two other marathoners who took time off to birth children and now have returned to finish in the top three of the U.S. women’s Olympic trials.
She didn’t ask the women why they stopped running to have children. Or if she did, she didn’t include their reasons.
In that way, the reporter treated the faith decisions of Mantz and Young as part of the natural human experience. What an invigorating, authentic representation.
Read the full Wall Street Journal story here (paywall).
