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I suppose it betrays a certain cynicism about me, or a long experience with LCMS organs. The LCMS, not being as large and so it could swing things, always cared too much about outside publications. The internal pubs were all "good news" stories with the occasional "we messed up" announcement in 6pt on page 6 (and in recent times moved exclusively online.) I've carried a 2x2 in my mind. Who is Paying (Inside/Outside) on one side and Bright/Dark or Good/Bad coverage on the other. I'm the oddball, but I always wanted an outside source available that would cover the Dark. My choice of inside/outside as a label I think is meaningful in the new world. Because there is no independent press. The Inside organ's smear against the outside was always the muckraking one in various flavors. But in Lutheran World Herman Otten for decades was crazily accurate - like Alex Jones recently - about dark LCMS stories. He continued primarily because he had a massive (and probably justified) axe to grind. The trouble comes when your subscribers think you are an inside source and they want bright stories from you, but you are actually an outside one and are the only source that might report a dark story.

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Is there a truly independent LCMS source that covers NEWS?

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Not professional, by which I mean the commentary/news barriers were routinely ignored to non-existent. But there used to be a couple of sources. Otten's Christian News, in between Holocaust denial articles and the rest of the cranks, did cover NEWS. And in church election season, or during any major scandal in the LCMS, or anything ecumenical because it was a hobby horse of his, people would make the trek to Otten to tell their side. He got the full story that wouldn't be published elsewhere if at all. Unless it was big enough for the local St. Louis paper to beat up the LCMS. The other source used to be a group called the ALPB (American Lutheran Publicity Bureau). It was the bastion of upper-crusty east coast Lutheranism. The great losing side of the Seminex wars and everything that followed for a generation. As Otten could be trusted to tell dark news of LCMS, Inc. and "libs/hyper-clericals", the ALPB could be trusted to tell dark news of LCMS, Inc. and "cons/fundamentalists". They agreed on LCMS, Inc. But today there really isn't anything. A couple of newsletters. A couple of websites. But unlike those entities that wanted to be seen at least partially as independent News sources, there really is nothing. We really aren't big enough either in people or in those parishioners mindshare.

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