Outside of meetingshouses the sign reads "Visitors Welcome". Does this include reporters? If one is going to the church in order to learn about it for reports, is that consider against the rules?

They can, to a certain extent, control a person's behavior when on private property.

They can tell anyone they want to leave and never come back.

Other than that, it seems to me they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in a place that says, "Visitors Welcome."

I've only seen things in SM that rate about 6 on one my 'weird shit-o-meter', so a reporter in SM can only do so much harm. Starve and sob*, now that's an entirely different story.

*I love this. I stole it from someone who I can't remember. Thanks whomever I stole it from.

I don't see why not. There's no reason you wouldn't be able to go inside, take some notes, maybe ask a few people some questions. I believe they have rules/guidelines against photography or recording devices used inside, but that may be at the discretion of the bishop for that particular congregation.

However, you won't learn much about the mormon church from Sunday meetings. They are very, very, very boring, very bland, very noisy, and do not discuss any of the "weird" doctrines, beliefs, or history. It's all whitewashed.

One thing that would be worthy of a project would be the number of times Christ is mentioned and quoted in contrast to JS, prophets and local projects. Same for Bible and Joapeh Smith's books.

As I understand it, a reporter would be permitted to attend. There are strict rules however that prohibit anyone from recording audio or video of the meetings.