Joel Campbell, the Deseret News Mormon Media Observer, takes a look at how the news media (unMormon media, that is) regarded Mormonism after gazing into Mitt Romney's campaign crater.

Even I was interviewed by a Washington Post reporter wondering whether rank-and-file church members felt Romney's campaign was boon or bane. I think I was in a minority when I said in the long run I think it was a good thing. I invoked Brigham Young's quote I remember hearing when I was a kid: "Every time you kick Mormonism, you kick it up the stairs."

Campbell, who left out the polling information that shows a huge percentage of Americans, not just evangelicals, say they would be uncomfortable voting for a Mormon president, deems the reports not as bad as they might seem.

Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I subscribe to what President Gordon B. Hinckley once said about negative media coverage: this will be a “blip.” But it has opened a door of opportunity. Latter-day Saints do have our work cut out for us. We can no longer circle the wagons in grand pioneer tradition and hope the media goes away.

Good point about no longer circling the wagons, Joel. But I find it interesting the LDS Church-owned DNews has no generic media analysis in its daily paper* and that it chose an Mormon academic on the BYU payroll to blog on media coverage of Mormon issues.

*nor does the Tribune.