For My Friends in Media: How Not to Cover Hate Groups
Happy Sunday,
This week I was blown away by a news broadcast back home, putting a Neo-Nazi on the air; he denied his Nazisim and then promptly spouted a bunch of Nazi talking points, largely unrefuted. It was a case of both sides journalism that though well-intended disserves the public. Share this with the reporter in your life.
Have you ever found yourself wondering how we collectively got to the place where random city council members in the US break their necks to defend their local Neo Nazis? That’s where I found myself this week and I realized I wanted to dedicate this newsletter to my friends and acquaintances that work in local journalism. Their work is essential. More people watch local news and read local papers in the aggregate than watch cable news or read the New York Times, and it’s not really close. But local journalists often approach issues like this from their ingrained lens of neutrality, a lens that results in them getting played by bigots. I want to dwell on this point for a moment. Neo-Nazism is an inherently violent movement that seeks the eradication of non-white people and the establishment of an ethnostate. They would put me and my family in front of a firing squad if they could. You truly don’t owe them equal time.
You all understand that not all viewpoints belong in a given story. When a child is shot in local gang violence, you don’t give the shooter a platform to explain their rough upbringing and their side of the story. I’ve never seen local TV news cut from interviewing a victim of arson to the arsonist to explain the lure of pyromania. When a bank is robbed you interview police or people from the bank—you don’t do the Mike Wallace “Hi, I'd like to ask you some questions…” routine at the robber's last known address. You don’t owe Nazis airtime. When you give them airtime, you provide a platform to pedal their views. You give them an audience, where people with high levels of racial resentment start trafficking in Neo-Nazi memes and phrasings. We saw this play out with the mainstreaming of the Great Replacement Theory, a decades old Neo-Nazi trope into US conservative discourse.
Before you ask, no “ignoring them” is not a workable solution. It only emboldens them because they see your silence as endorsement and complicity—sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Listen, I’m not new at this. I spent about 18 months from election day 2016 until Hope and I departed the US touring the country and talking to often visibly upset audiences of educators and realtors about the presence and normalization of violent white supremacists in society. Lemmie tell you, it’s among the fastest ways imaginable to not get invited back someplace. On each occasion, I ended my talks with this image of Richard Spencer and his gaggle of Nazis celebrating Trump’s assent to the presidency and then later started using pictures of the Hammerskin Neo-Nazi cell that resided less than two miles from my home. Fragile liberals and others in the audience handled it about as well as you might expect. I had people walk out; I had people confront me after my talks; I had people complain to conference organizers.
The ground has shifted in ways that many in journalism haven’t grappled with. Here's a quick distillation of what’s playing out on the US right: Because politics is both tribal and coalitional, the old country club conservative figures that used to dominate the GOP felt obligated to cavort with and defend the new Trumpist right, eventually making the two indistinguishable. In the wake of that consolidation, a new bigoted fringe has risen up that often finds favor with the Trumpist mainstream.
Put differently, the Pat Buchanan crank fringe of the party is now the mainstream of the GOP. Since what was fringe is now mainstream the new fringe is populated by paramilitary street brawlers like the Proud Boys, revisionist Klan-esque groups like Patriot Front, and good old fashioned Neo-Nazis.
That exact scenario is playing out right now in Centralia, Washington. A neo-Nazi, whites-only religious movement that cloaks their bigotry in Nordic myths and runes has been discovered by local activists. Pro forma, local political figures are taking sides. On one side you have the mayor taking a moral stand: “So let me be crystal clear here: as Mayor of Centralia, I welcome people from all races and ethnicities. I strive to create an inclusive city. And I oppose people and businesses that promote racist ideals. I invite you to do the same.” On the other side, unable to form a coherent argument, a Trump aligned city council member says, “I believe the media has jumped on this for the sake of their publications.” This is simple misdirection. For her, the problem isn’t the presence of Neo-Nazis—the issue is the media—so she shifts to fight on familiar terrain. This is disingenuous but it’s effective and to be clear, if it was an Afrocentric liberation militia she’d be singing a different tune.
We saw the same cycle play out in 2018 when the News Tribune published their regrettable “we say less shouting” op-ed, chastising Tacoma Against Nazis for not fighting Nazis with more City Club debates. This focus on tactics and media coverage is how we get folks who would otherwise never find themselves defending Nazis doing exactly that.
It’s important for local reporters to inform the community about Neo-Nazi hate groups but you don't have to put them on air or give them equal time. One of my favorite things to do on my podcast is to get an expert on and let them teach my audience. This is how we should cover hate groups. The Anti Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center are the established experts in this field. I’ve had representatives from both on Nerd Farmer.
In a recent piece (that I won’t be linking to), an experienced local reporter from KING 5 news allowed a Neo-Nazi to say a paraphrase of the infamous fourteen words in the news story without providing that context to the audience. When Flavel says in the story: "We believe in a true ethnic faith for, for lack of a better term, white people, for the descendants of white people." He’s introducing thousands of viewers to the infamous Nazi fourteen words "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." That line is an intentional soft-pedaling of an ideology whose natural conclusion is the genocide of all non-white people. The Nazi knew exactly what he was doing, the reporter did not. When you turn the mic over to the Nazis, you’re inevitably going to get burned.
Recommendations and Bits for the Week
I randomly decided I’d rewatch the Mission Impossible films because they all popped up on international Netflix, presumably in anticipation of this summer’s Dead Reckoning, Part 1. Everything was great up until Rogue Nation. We need to have a conversation about JJ Abrams as a filmmaker. I have never seen an alleged adult as enamored with spectacle and devoid of substance. I am not going to rehash the fights over the Star Wars sequels but holy hell, Abrams makes excellent trailers and incoherent films.
Next, I lost about an hour of my life chuckling this weekend over a new trend. Black Zoomers are discovering the band Rage Against the Machine and are blow-away by what they’re hearing. It’s wild that Rage’s self-titled debut came out in 1992. For these kids, it is the equivalent of me discovering Stax Records and Curtis Mayfield in my 20s. The videos are an absolute waste of time but also hilarious. Bonus: you get lines like "That mf’er Tom Morello is a cheat code” on the guitar, an incredible bit of music criticism.
Lastly, Hope and I will be home in a little over a month. If you are a member of Channel 253 keep an eye on your inbox for details about this summer’s Channel 253 Live event. Various show hosts from across the network will be recording episodes in front of a studio audience. Date and location to be announced as we sort out the details but it's gonna be a banger.
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See you next week!
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