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Church scales back media center plans
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The Mormon church is scaling back plans to sponsor a media center where unaccredited journalists could work during the 2002 Winter Games. Instead, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will provide a news center in the downtown Joseph Smith Memorial Building "to respond to working journalists who need information to report on the church, its people, beliefs and history," spokesman Dale Bills said Wednesday. With the Utah Travel Council's announcement that it will operate a center for unaccredited journalists, "the church no longer sees a need to provide work space for journalists," Bills said. In February, Michael Otterson, a church spokesman, said such a center would complement other media centers, including the official media hub provided by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for 9,000 accredited journalists in the Salt Palace. "We think these facilities will work very well in harmony with each other," Otterson said. Spence Kinard, Utah Travel Council director, said the church's decision to scale back will not change the council's plans to provide media services. "We think we'll have adequate facilities to take care of any media that might have planned to go the LDS media center," he said. Kinard questioned whether the church's separate media center was necessary in the first place, saying it would be redundant. "It's probably a more palatable situation for journalists to come to a state-run operation rather than go to a specific religion site," he said. Church officials have said they will use the Olympics as an opportunity to tell the story of the history and culture of Mormonism. The church's public relations department has already mailed about 3,000 information packets to sports reporters, columnists and feature writers around the world.
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