Major liberal papers treating Nazi sympathizers like Peter Pan and the Lost Boys
The New York Times is far from the only mainstream outlet treating Nazi sympathizers like Peter Pan and the lost boys while detaining real history in the confines of some fantastical Neverland.
I typically refrain from imparting my opinion in these discussions, choosing instead to navigate my reporting on white supremacist movements instinctually, or rather without and predefined rules set for myself. As a reporter, that’s exactly what I should be doing, not virtue signalling with statements that certain interview subjects are forbidden, making un-nuanced statements about ‘platforming,’ or decrying the loss some mythical tradition of American so-called free speech.
But as I’ve refused to set rules, I’ve grown more conscious of those set by big media. I was prompted by the sheer lack of responsibility and ethics to take down my thoughts on the matter. In place of some well deserved meta-analysis that would not really fall into my providence as a reporter, I’ve used the New York Times story, a Washington Post story about Charlottesville, and an LA Times profile of a self-proclaimed “identitarian,” to illustrate the patterns I’ve found in media reporting on emerging fascist groups.
The idea is that Peter Pan never aged. One article by the liberal journalist Laurie Penny even profiled Milo under the headline “On the Milo bus with the lost boys of America’s new right.” It was before it was confirmed — though it was highly suspected — that Milo worked with Nazi sympathizers.
Like a recent LA Times profile on Nathan Damigo, the founder of the fascist group Identity Evropa, which is the most prolific of white supremacist organizations in terms of college canvassing, NYT made only a small note of Nazi crimes, or the history of fascism, which seemed balanced against an avalanche of humanizing anecdotes. The articles never substantially investigative their subjects. LA Times offered readers to tweet a quote from Damigo with the click of a button, and attribution was completely removed from the automated tweets. In doing so, they lended substantial material support to the spread of a white nationalist propaganda dogwhistle about white people feeling as foreigners in America. NYT instead opted to advertise Nazi merchandise by literally hyperlinking “a swastika armband” to the actual store page, in the sentence: “On its [the Traditionalist Workers’ Party’s (TWP)] website, a swastika armband goes for $20.
Beyond infantilizing & humanizing Nazi sympathizers, de-historicizing & whitewashing fascism & materially supporting resurgent movements, all of which excluding the last exist pretty much across the board in coverage dedicated to far right movements coming from literally every major paper in the United States, there is, finally, paralyzing omission. NYT profile of TWP’s co-founder had not one paragraph on the other co-founder, Mathew Heimbach’s long history of violent behavior, rhetoric & organizing which has recently included documents that surfaced showing that in court he argued Donald Trump ordered him to assault a black woman at a protest. The day following that in-court argument, he was photographed leading a group of his followers to protests against Richard Spencer at Auburn University. Not only did he help organize Unite the Right in Charlottesville, but a member of the group, a 22-year-old man named Jacob Goodwin, helped brutalize DeAndre Harris in a parking garage. The Washington Post confirmed the story with assistance of the felony assailant’s own mother.
Again, they infantilized the subject, in what wasn’t even a profile, but just a straight news article about his arrest.
Reporters don’t take a single quote and walk away if they have you. They chat you up for a while and listen closely for things they might like to report. But the post only reported that she said: “I told him, ‘It does look like you kick him,’ but he said, ‘No, Mom, I didn’t.’ Goodwin is yet again infantilized for readers through his mother’s strange statement about how her son is so sweet he can’t even own up to his mistakes to his mother, whom he of course considers to be far too innocent concern herself with such grievous matters. Or maybe he’s perhaps ashamed and in denial? The Post doesn’t tell you their impression was of what she was trying to signify. They leave the family with the attribution of his mother’s aforemention quote, which went “said the mother, who attended the rally.” Why she and her adult son both came all the way from Arkansas to Charlottesville, I suppose, is not important enough for the Post to address here.
A TWP rally in Sacramento in June 2016 saw 7 people stabbed outside. None of the handful of stories I’ve referenced here took serious research.
In fact, I’ve pulled them from memory and researched merely to fact check myself. Here we see that omission is without a doubt a major pillar in this house. But none of this would be so disturbing if these tendencies I’ve outlined weren’t so ubiquitous, particularly in bourgeois liberal media. This isn’t to say I think journalists should categorically refrain from interviewing the far right. I have interviewed Damigo and a Klan leader. These decisions informed my reporting & my audiences. I received the only interview apart from a collective Q&A with major outlets. Later on I got the leader whose breath I was able safely report wreaked of booze. Half way in he started accusing me of being Jewish and insinuating I was part of a conspiracy to sow racial division throughout the south. In other words, the Klansman easily dug his own grave. But I never employed any of the horrific tendencies I’ve outlined here, and everyone should take a stand against media that does.
