Have Mercy On One Another

“When persons manifest the least kindness and love to me, O what pow’r it has over my mind. . . . The nearer we get to our heavenly Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls—[we feel that we want] to take them upon our shoulders and cast their sins behind our back. If you would have God have mercy on you, have mercy on one another.”— Joseph Smith. On the surface, this sounds like a sermon.

But as someone studying Communication and Social Media, I keep coming back to it when I think about news writing. Because news isn’t just facts. It’s people. 1. Kindness has power over the mind. Joseph Smith said the smallest act of kindness “has power over my mind.” In the news, that’s the difference between a headline that shames and a story that explains.

We can report that “a family was evicted.” Or we can report why, who they are, and what happens next. The facts are the same. The kindness in how we tell it changes how people think, feel, and act. One version hardens hearts. The other opens them.

2. Getting closer means looking with compassion. “The nearer we get to our heavenly Father, the more are we dispos’d to look with compassion on perishing souls.”Good news writing does the same thing. The closer we get to a story — the more interviews we do, the more context we add — the less we see “subjects” and the more we see people. It’s easy to write about “crime statistics.” It’s harder to write about the mother, the student, the community behind the number.
Compassion in journalism doesn’t mean being biased. It means being human first. It means asking: Who is being hurt here? Who needs their story carried?

3. “Take them upon our shoulders and cast their sins behind our back” This line hits hard for reporters. Every person in the news has made mistakes. Every institution has failures. It would be easy to just expose and walk away. But the job of a communicator isn’t just to point. It’s to carry.
To tell the full story so people aren’t reduced to their worst moment.
To give context, not just condemnation.
To “cast sins behind our back” means: report the truth, but don’t weaponize it. Don’t leave people buried under it.

4. “If you would have God have mercy on you, have mercy on one another.”This is the editorial standard I wish every newsroom had on the wall.Mercy in news looks like: Accuracy over speed — not running with rumors that could ruin someone

Dignity in photos and words — not using pain for clicks Balance — letting all sides speak, especially the ones without a platform

Solutions — not just reporting what’s broken, but what could helpWe want audiences to be fair with us when we get it wrong. So we have to be fair with them first.Bottom LineJoseph Smith wasn’t talking about journalism. But his quote describes the best kind of journalism anyway. News writing at its best is an act of mercy.

It’s choosing kindness in tone.
It’s choosing compassion in angle.
It’s choosing to carry stories, not just cover them.Because at the end of the day, every byline is about people. And people deserve to be handled with care.The world gets enough harsh headlines.
What if we gave it a few more merciful ones?