After the Spanish–American War he returned to work at the Deseret News and served as an executive editor of the newspaper off-and-on until his death.

Grant once said of Cannon: "There probably is not a young man in the church who had had more opportunities and advantages extended to him educationally, spiritually, and every other way than John Q.

[4] Cannon confronted Lippman in downtown Salt Lake City and demanded a retraction of the story.

Cannon, who was city editor for the Deseret News at the time, almost certainly wrote the article about the confrontation between himself and Lippman.

[5] On September 5, 1886, Cannon was released from the Presiding Bishopric and excommunicated from the church after he confessed in public at the traditional Sunday meeting in the Salt Lake Tabernacle that he and Louie Wells had committed adultery.

However, after Cannon and Wells were married, he was criminally charged with the crimes of polygamy and unlawful cohabitation, largely based on the earlier rumors that had been promoted by Lippman's article.

[4] After being humiliated in a preliminary hearing in which she had to testify, Louie Wells went to San Francisco to live with her half-sister and brother-in-law, Belle Whitney and Septimus Sears.