Operation Underground Railroad, the Utah-based organization that inspired the hit indie movie “Sound of Freedom,” has no shortage of problems right now.

There’s a news organization (Vice.com) that is constantly running exposés on it; the unexpected resignation of its telegenic CEO, Tim Ballard, in June due to allegations of sexual misconduct; a criminal investigation (since closed with no charges filed) by the Davis County attorney’s office; and a dust-up with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Also, a Utah Fox News outlet — which was totally fed up with Ballard’s antics — ran this story about the called-off criminal investigation. Shortly thereafter, the attorney’s office released a bunch of documents. At that point, newsrooms pounced.

The latest piece of news sounds like a tabloid title. “Operation Underground Railroad Child Rescue Missions Were Based on Psychic Intelligence,” was the Vice headline last week.

Before quoting from that piece, I want to note that the media pile-on over “Sound of Freedom” exaggerated claims about Ballard’s heroic role in stopping child sex trafficking does mystify me. This isn’t the first movie out there to take major liberties with the original story, while bringing “reality” to the screen. Look at what “The Sound of Music” did to the real Von Trapp family.

A key piece of the Vice story:

It was a tense day in February 2016 for Tim Ballard and operatives working for Operation Underground Railroad, the anti-human trafficking group he founded. They were on what would prove to be a bumbling and ineffective mission to save a trafficked child Ballard believed was being held in a village on the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. 

This wasn’t just any mission, however. The child they were searching for was Gardy Mardy, a missing Haitian boy whose abduction Ballard has portrayed as “the case that led us to found OUR.” Joining him and his team of elite operatives was Janet Russon — a psychic medium from Utah whose supposed visions were guiding the mission.

Vice News has had OUR in its crosshairs for some time, including a large investigative piece that ran in 2021 followed by several more articles. The gist of the 2021 piece alleged sloppy training done by OUR for its operatives; that OUR chose its workers more on the basis of how much they donated to the organization and that some of its methods were making the sex-trafficking industry worse.