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The Founder Of MormonLeaks Says The Main Goal Is To Inform, Not Alarm

Ryan McKnight Headshot.
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Ryan McKnight is the founder of MormonLeaks.

MormonLeaks, a website known for releasing inside information about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-days Saints, is often at the center of attention-grabbing stories. Recent revelations about the LDS Church’s finances and sexual assault have popped up in headlines. But the site’s founder, Ryan McKnight, has a bigger mission than stoking controversy.  

McKnight, who lives in Las Vegas, is in Utah this week presenting at the Sunstone Summer Symposium, an annual seminar devoted to Mormonism in all its iterations. He said it’s a common misconception that MormonLeaks is attempting to discredit the LDS Church.

 

“With the exception of one or two leaks, everything we’ve published could be easily viewed from a faithful perspective,” McKnight said. “I think a lot of active Mormons don’t realize that - they think that it’s just a big ‘testimony-breaking’ website. But it’s really not. A lot of the stuff reflects well on the church.”

The website has released some controversial material recently though, including an audio recording of a woman, McKenna Denson, speaking with a former president of the Missionary Training Center. In the recording, Denson accuses the former leader of raping her in the 1980s.

McKnight said one of his top priorities with MormonLeaks is to shed light on how the LDS Church handles allegations of abuse.

“The Church obviously can’t stop sexual abuse from happening completely,” McKnight said. But he said he would like to see the Church be more forthcoming with information about the sex abuse cases it’s been involved with, by sharing details about settlement payments or other agreements.

But, McKnight points out, the majority of the information on MormonLeaks never makes it to the news cycle — things like missionary statistics and construction plans.

Credit MormonLeaks Twitter

“We are not interested necessarily in the shock value,” McKnight said. “Some of the stuff we publish inherently has shock value, but if something provides insight into an aspect of the church that we believe should be open to the public we’re going to publish it no matter how boring and mundane it is.”

McKnight’s argument is this: tithe-paying Mormons deserve to know how the LDS Church is spending its money and using its resources, like a typical non-profit would. But McKnight understands that as a religious organization the Church is not obligated to do so.

“I’m not optimistic that the Church is going is going to listen to us and make any material changes,” McKnight said.

The LDS Church doesn’t generally engage with McKnight directly, but he’s okay with that. He said his goal is to inspire the average Mormon to become a little more curious about how their Church is run.

Lee Hale began listening to KUER while he was teaching English at a Middle School in West Jordan (his one hour commute made for plenty of listening time). Inspired by what he heard he applied for the Kroc Fellowship at NPR headquarters in DC and to his surprise, he got it. Since then he has reported on topics ranging from TSA PreCheck to micro apartments in overcrowded cities to the various ways zoo animals stay cool in the summer heat. But, his primary focus has always been education and he returns to Utah to cover the same schools he was teaching in not long ago. Lee is a graduate of Brigham Young University and is also fascinated with the way religion intersects with the culture and communities of the Beehive State. He hopes to tell stories that accurately reflect the beliefs that Utahns hold dear.
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