by Danielle Ellis

Much has been said over the past few weeks over a Jim Gibson campaign mailer. It was a reprint of an article originally written by me, printed in our magazine in July 2005.

Although the bulk of the comments have centered not on the actual article, but on the fact that Gibson would send out an article from a “Mormon magazine” as a political campaign piece, I still am going to comment on the facts as they stand.

1. Our magazine is a privately owned corporation. We are not spokesmen for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we are not tied to the Church in any business relationship, and we are solely responsible for the magazine’s content. We publish to inform, uplift and entertain members and friends of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Southern Nevada and Southern Utah.

2. We run profiles on people of interest to the Latter-day Saint community. As the mayor of a nationally acclaimed major city within our distribution area and a member in good standing in the Church, Jim Gibson certainly qualifies as a person of interest to our readers.

3. The article was in print before Gibson declared his candidacy for governor. Our policy since the inception of the magazine has been to run no articles on any one political candidate during a campaign season.

4. Lest anyone think Desert Saints Magazine plays favorites, we accept advertising from candidates from any political party. Our criteria is that ads must be uplifting and only about the candidate, not others in the same race.