While reading the news, I see an article about polygamy:

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/daughter-polygamist-cult-founder-recounts-044949238.html

In the headline, it uses the word "cult" and refers to Warren Jeffs as the "founder."

In the article, it describes Jeffs as a "self-proclaimed prophet."

Why is such verbiage reserved for the FLDS church, and not for the "mainstream" LDS Church?

They are both cults.

Also, wouldn't Joseph Smith be considered the "founder" of both the FLDS and LDS churches?

And wouldn't it be accurate to describe Joseph Smith AND Thomas Monson as "self-proclaimed" prophets?

Why does the media use such vocabulary for one side of the coin, but not the other?

The church headquartered in SLC has a better PR department and more attorneys.

By and large, I find "Mainstream media's understanding, and thus reporting, of religious matters uninformed and mediocre. For eample, they don't grasp denominational differences within Protestantism, especially the differences between Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. And they're at a major disadvantage when it comes to marginal sects, like LDS, Christian Science, and Pentacostals.

So it's no surprise that MSM presumes that while FLDS is a cult but accepts SLC as a "denomination.'