I recently argued that one kind of media bias people often miss is assignment bias: the simple fact that who gets assigned to a story shapes the story readers receive. That point is worth keeping in mind as the Chicago Sun-Times covers The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Robert Herguth is not a lightweight. He is an investigative reporter whose beat includes police corruption, organized crime … and religion.
One of those things is not like the others.
Religion is, of course, not exempt from corruption or crime. But this combination can also create a temptation to read every religious controversy as though it were a mob file waiting to be cracked open.
That seems to be part of what happened in the Sun-Times’ two recent pieces on Wade Christofferson, the brother of President D. Todd Christofferson. This case is horrifying and newsworthy. The Justice Department says Wade Christofferson was federally charged in late 2025 with attempting to sexually exploit a minor and with coercion and enticement. Prosecutors allege repeated hands-on abuse of an Ohio child, plus separate exploitation and hands-on abuse involving a second child in Utah. The Sun-Times also reported that the alleged abuse underlying the current criminal case did not occur on church property and was not directly tied to church activities. That does not make the case less awful. But it does matter when deciding what kind of story this is.
The outline of the Church’s response, as reported by the Sun-Times itself, is not the outline of an established institutional cover-up. According to the Church’s statement, Wade Christofferson was excommunicated in the mid-1990s over abuse allegations, readmitted in 1997, and D. Todd Christofferson did not learn the specific nature of his brother’s abuse history until around 2020, through family disclosure. The Church also told the Sun-Times that when those older allegations were discussed, the adult victims did not want law enforcement involved, and that when President Christofferson later learned of a recent allegation involving a minor, he immediately reported it to legal authorities. Those facts may still leave room for criticism and painful moral questions. But they do not suggest corruption, cover-up, or scandal. The framing and analogies used by Herguth do the suggesting that the facts do not.
Herguth’s coverage did not mention the research suggesting that The Church of Jesus Christ’s policies, or the research showing their low sexual abuse rates compared to other youth organizations. But he did find time to mention LGBT+ issues and Joseph Smith’s polygamy.
In other words, his coverage treats The Church of Jesus Christ not as a major religious body that helps facilitate faith for millions around the world, but treats it like a mob that should be taken down no matter how relevant or supported the accusations.
But what else would you expect when you assign your organized crime journalist to your religion stories?
Latter-day Saints should not ask to be shielded from scrutiny when children are harmed. This case deserved coverage just as other crime beat stories do. But it also deserves journalistic discipline. The Sun-Times missed the boat here in a way that was predictable and avoidable if they had just assigned the correct reporter.
