23 Facts About Reed Cowan

Darrin Reed Cowan was born on July 24,1972 and is an American journalist.

Reed Cowan started his journalism career working as a radio disc-jockey for KNEU Radio in Roosevelt, Utah.

In 1995, Reed Cowan worked as a part-time on-air reporter for Fox's KSTU in Salt Lake City, Utah while a student at Utah State University.

Reed Cowan next worked as a reporter and weekend morning anchor for KSL-TV in Salt Lake City.

Reed Cowan was born on July 24,1972, in Roosevelt, Utah, and was raised in the Mormon religion.

Reed Cowan ended the relationship at the request of a church leader and went through years of various forms of conversion therapy, then married a woman at the urging of another church leader.

The marriage ended after three years and Reed Cowan re-united with Abplanalp, whom he married on September 4,2013, in Laguna Beach and with whom adopted three children.

Wesley's death prompted Reed Cowan to found the Wesley Smiles Coalition, which works with Free the Children to raise funds to build schools in Africa.

Reed Cowan made the 2007 documentary The Other Side of the Lens, which covers his emotions over his son's death and his experiences with the media attention Wesley's death attracted.

Reed Cowan is on the advisory board for Free The Children, a child advocacy organization, and serves as a producer for the youth organization Power In You.

Reed Cowan is an active supporter of anti-bullying legislation and has worked as a public speaker on the subject of bullying in school.

Reed Cowan has produced and directed two self-made films, The Other Side of the Lens and 8.

The second half of the film follows Reed Cowan seeking to fill the void left in Wesley's wake by raising money to build a schoolhouse for an impoverished rural community in Kenya.

The Mormon Proposition, began in 2008 as an exploration of suicide among homeless gay teenagers in Salt Lake City, but wound up focusing on the support of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for California's Proposition 8, a successful popular referendum banning same-sex marriage which Reed Cowan called "one of the largest ballot-measure shams in the history of the United States".

Reed Cowan funded the film by taking out a second mortgage on his home and running up tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt, with Bastian providing the remainder.

Reed Cowan claimed that, while making the film, he was approached by a gay man he called "Mormon Deep Throat" who had worked for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and leaked documents which outlined the Church's strategy for defeating same-sex marriage at the polls.

Reed Cowan blamed Mormons for spreading what he called "misinformation" about the California ballot measure and drew an analogy to the predicament of homeless gay Mormon teenagers.

Reed Cowan received negative mail, with some blaming his son's death on his homosexual lifestyle.

When questioned about the seemingly distorted audio, Reed Cowan denied that it had been distorted while co-director Greenstreet said that the audio had been taken from low quality MP3 files.

Reed Cowan said that he no longer speaks to his father and sisters, who remain devout Mormons, and that his parents refused to see the film.

The dispute arose from the placement of a plaque honoring Reed Cowan's deceased son Wesley at a school in Kenya built by WE Charity, about which Reed Cowan had testified before the Canadian Parliament several weeks prior.

WE Charity's attorneys responded by accusing Reed Cowan of attempted extortion.

Journalism professor and media ethics specialist Mary Hausch of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas commented that Reed Cowan's threats breached established standards requiring journalists to avoid conflicts of interest.