Black Mormons Torn Between Romney And Obama?!

When I saw the headline "Black Mormons Face Tough Election Choice Between Romney And Obama," I naturally presumed it would lead to a parody news piece in The Onion.

When I saw the headlineBlack Mormons Face Tough Election Choice Between Romney And Obama,” I naturally presumed it would lead to a parody news piece in The Onion.

Instead it was a Huffington Post story apparently repurposing the identical report in USA Today and circulated by something called the Religion News Service.

Aside from the obvious point in the lede–“Twenty years ago, who would have predicted the 2012 U.S. presidential race would pit a black incumbent against a white Mormon?”–there’s actually zero news in the story.  We learn that “African-Americans still represent only about 3 percent of the Mormons’ 6 million U.S. members” and get no data whatsoever on how they vote.  They interview a handful of black students at Mormon schools and don’t even ask most of them who they plan to vote for.

FILED UNDER: 2012 Election, Media, Religion, US Politics, , , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. al-Ameda says:

    I think they’ll vote for the Mormon with the car elevator.

    Seriously, there must be Utah voting data that shows the demographic breakdown of votes in Utah’s cities, and state and congressional elections that might give us a hint as to how the Black Mormon vote might go. Salt Lake City mayoral elections, stuff like that.

  2. Tsar Nicholas says:

    Idle time, idle minds.

  3. michael reynolds says:

    Are you saying that USA Today wrote a data-free story and the HuffPo regurgitated it? Why, this is a very troubling development. Very troubling. Did they at least have a pie chart?

  4. @michael reynolds:

    There was a disturbing imbalance between the wedge for the quantity of things that can’t be qualified and the wedge for the quality of things that can’t be quantified!

  5. PJ says:

    While it is an interesting subgroup, being both black and Mormon, it’s also a very small subgroup considering that the entire subgroup (including those under 18) is only about 180,000.
    So, those asking for data can forget ever getting any.

    Also, I doubt there has ever been a non Mormon black Democrat running for office in Utah.

  6. mattb says:
  7. MarkedMan says:

    Hey – I knew the guy who did those front page pie charts for USA Today, or at least he did back in the mid ’90s. They were a lot more than just pie charts! He was very talented (no sarcasm) and could apply those talents in showing information-free information in truly innovative and interesting ways (sarcasm).

  8. mantis says:

    What about left-handed Hispanic Jews? How will they vote?