Hate in the Headlines: Journalism & the Challenge of Extremism
- Updated on: 2023-03-04
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Hate in the Headlines: Journalism & the Challenge of Extremism
Hate in the Headlines: Journalism & the Challenge of Extremism
Photo Credit: Tyler Merbler, TapTheForwardAssist, Loozrboy
Introduction
In August 2017, millions of Americans were shocked and horrified to see footage of thousands of white supremacists marching openly on the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia. After the rally—in which counterprotester Heather Heyer was murdered by a white supremacist 1 See Department of Justice – Office of Public Affairs, Ohio Man Sentenced to Life in Prison for Federal Hate Crimes Related to August 2017 Car Attack at Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, June 28, 2019, justice.gov/opa/pr/ohio-man-sentenced-life-prison-federal-hate-crimes-related-august-2017-car-attack-rally —U.S. publications kicked off a national conversation about the need to cover right-wing domestic extremism in a more concerted way. “The beat should be a priority for newsrooms located in ostensibly progressive areas like cities, as well as rural areas,” a journalist wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review. “White nationalists and the influence of white supremacy are everywhere,” and newsrooms should cover events like the Unite the Right rally not as an “aberration” but as “a symptom of an ideology knitted into the fabric of America.” 2 Christiana Mbakwe, “White-supremacy threat demands its own beat reporters,” Columbia Journalism Review, August 17, 2017, cjr.org/criticism/white-supremacy-beat.php
The collective alarm felt by American journalists and the public echoed the shock of the previous November when Donald Trump won the presidential election, running on a platform that explicitly invoked white supremacist ideology and narratives. Both the Charlottesville rally and the election results jolted the press, galvanizing waves of articles on extremists and extremism. Reporters gravitated to the beat, and newsrooms began focusing resources toward investigations. Coverage of far-right extremism, especially white supremacist extremism, rose dramatically at national media outlets between 2016 and 2018. What was once a specialized and somewhat obscure beat became more commonplace.
But the explosion of interest brought its own problems. As newsrooms rushed to cover right-wing extremists, they found that their audience betrayed a morbid fascination with them and that news coverage threatened to glamorize them. Some newsrooms, including the most prestigious ones, ran profiles of white supremacists that unintentionally made them seem relatable, while some digital outlets thirsting for content published clickbait stories about them. All of this generated outsize engagement from readers without inoculating them from the lure of extremist vitriol and propaganda. 3 Interview with a technology reporter on background. Name withheld at their request. PEN America interview with Kelly Weill, reporter, the Daily Beast, November 8, 2021; PEN America interview with Michael Edison Hayden, senior investigative reporter, Southern Poverty Law Center, October 8, 2021; Interview with David Neiwert of the Daily Kos. Secondary sources: Whitney Phillips, “The Oxygen of Amplification,” Data & Society, 2018, https://datasociety.net/library/oxygen-of-amplification/ .; Avi Asher-Schapiro, “Journalists covering US white supremacists must weigh risks to selves and families,” Committee to Protect Journalists, March 15, 2018, https://cpj.org/2018/03/journalists-covering-us-white-supremacists-must-we/
Many journalists entering the beat had little awareness of the long history of white supremacist extremism or its relationship with the internet. 4 Whitney Phillips, “The Oxygen of Amplification,” Data & Society, 2018, https://datasociety.net/library/oxygen-of-amplification/ . White supremacist and other extremist groups were early adopters of online political organizing and by 2016—when then-candidate Donald Trump gave them the news hook they had been waiting for—had developed a culture of memes, satire, and trolling designed to manipulate journalists. 5 In journalism, the “news hook” is that critical piece of newsworthy information that captures the attention and interest of both the news media and their audiences. Yopp, McAdams, & Thornburg, Reaching Audiences: A Guide to Media Writing, Pearson Allyn and Bacon, 2010. This manipulation, combined with a wave of reporters incentivized to feed an insatiable appetite for digital content and Trump’s own increasingly explicit embrace of them, allowed extremists to ascend to the national stage. According to disinformation scholar Whitney Phillips, the news media was effectively “hijacked from 2016 to 2018 to amplify the messages of hate groups.” 6 Data & Society. “The Oxygen of Amplification.” By Whitney Phillips. 2018. https://datasociety.net/library/oxygen-of-amplification/ .
Domestic right-wing extremism has evolved from a fringe movement into an antidemocratic force with open support from some elected officials as well as influential conservative media figures, most notably Tucker Carlson, whose Fox News show has a nightly audience of three million–plus viewers. 7 Nicholas Confessore, “What to know about Tucker Carlson’s Rise,” The New York Times, April 30, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/business/media/tucker-carlson-fox-news-takeaways.html ; Amna Nawaz et al, “Tucker Carlson’s influence and his increasingly extreme views,” PBS NewsHour, May 2, 2022, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/tucker-carlsons-influence-and-his-increasingly-extreme-views According to an AP-NORC poll released this spring, one in three American adults believe in the “Great Replacement” theory, which holds that a “group of people is trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gains.” 8 Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, “Immigration Attitudes and Conspiratorial Thinkers: A Study Issued on the 10th Anniversary of the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, May 9, 2022, https://apnorc.org/projects/immigration-attitudes-and-conspiratorial-thinkers/ . A significant number align with the white power movement in their willingness to voice racial resentment toward communities of color, especially immigrants, and toward religious minorities, including Jews and Muslims, and to adopt their radical anti-government stance, and their embrace of authoritarian governance, and the promotion of disinformation to proselytize these views. 9 Chris Hayes, “The Republican Party is Radicalizing Against Democracy,” The Atlantic, February 8, 2021. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/republican-party-radicalizing-against-democracy/617959/
Trump and Trumpism have also goaded establishment Republican figures to break with the longstanding norms of the existing democratic system and embrace far-right extremist tactics like disinformation and antidemocratic obstruction, including tolerating and in some cases possibly enabling political violence, to achieve their political goals. 10 Carlos Maza, “How Trump makes extreme things look normal.” Vox, December 21, 2017, https://www.vox.com/2017/12/21/16806676/strikethrough-how-trump-overton-window-extreme-normal ; Sarah Manavis, “How the alt-right shifted the Overton Window,” New Statesman, June 10, 2020, https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2020/06/alt-right-politics-2016-andrew-marantz-antisocial-review ; Heather Timmons, “Stochastic terror and the cycle of hate that pushes unstable Americans to violence,” Quartz, October 26, 2018, https://qz.com/1436267/trump-stochastic-terror-and-the-hate-that-ends-in-violence/ ; Jon Allsop, “Both sides,” Columbia Journalism Review, December 16, 2019, https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/both-sides-impeachment-trump.php Hours after the Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021, 147 Republican U.S. representatives and senators voted to overturn the 2020 election results, and many elected officials and candidates still voice support for the “Big Lie” that Trump actually won. 11 Karen Yourish, Larry Buchanan, and Denise Lu, “The 147 Republicans who voted to overturn election results,” The New York Times, Jan. 7, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/07/us/elections/electoral-college-biden-objectors.html Less than two years later, a major portion of Republican candidates for office during the 2022 midterms denied the legitimacy of President Biden’s victory—a shocking embrace of dangerous disinformation within one of America’s two main political parties. 12 “60 Percent Of Americans Will Have An Election Denier On The Ballot This Fall,” FiveThirtyEight, Updated Oct. 28, 2022, https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/republicans-trump-election-fraud/ ; Adrain Blanco and Amy Gardner, “Where Republican Election Deniers are on the Ballot Near You,” The Washington Post, October 6, 2022, washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2022/election-deniers-running-for-office-elections-2022/?itid=hp-top-table-main-t-3 These anti-democratic impulses and tactics are ones that autocrats and authoritarians around the world happily employ.
Today, as far-right extremists have spread their ideology beyond organized hate groups and filled seats in local, state, and federal elected offices, they play an ever-more-prominent role in U.S. politics. The storming of the United States Capitol was the clearest, but far from the only, sign of the existential threat that anti-democratic extremists pose to our democracy. As efforts to subvert elections continue throughout local and national politics, journalists must reckon with when and how to identify and expose this unprecedented danger.
This report builds on the work of journalists and experts in journalism, media, and extremism to examine how the news media has grappled with the challenges of reporting on rising far-right extremism in the United States. It examines the steps taken to identify and report on this movement from 2016 until today and considers how the journalism industry should respond as the line between extremist and mainstream politics continues to blur.
As this report will explore, many ideas and tactics that originated in white supremacist subcultures and are antithetical to democracy have migrated from the fringe to the mainstream. Regardless of their increasing palatability to portions of the American public and among some candidates for office and elected officials, such stances remain extreme. Both antidemocratic and illiberal (in the sense of degrading Americans’ civil liberties), they are incompatible with the guarantees of civil rights and popular participation that underpin the American system of government. Far-right extremists have worked methodically to seed these ideas in broader society, casting them as normal to obscure the line between mainstream conservative politics and their own hate-based ideologies and shifting the so-called Overton window 13 Political science and policy theorists term the range of ideas and policy proposals deemed “acceptable” in mainstream public discourse the “Overton window.” Ideological movement of the Overton Window to include new policies or party priorities is a standard hallmark of American politics. For example, in 2011 Luke Fuszard of Business Insider attributed the visibility of social security privatization and Medicare reform introduced by Tea Party political candidates as the result of a long-term Republican Party strategy to shift the Overton Window to the right on issues of healthcare and social services. Politico , HuffPost , and The New York Times identified the introduction and campaign success of Bernie Sanders’s progressive economic policies in the 2016 election as evidence of a shift of the Overton Window on the left. See Maggie Astor, “How the Politically Unthinkable Can Become Mainstream,” The New York Times, Feb. 26, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/us/politics/overton-window-democrats.html ; Derek Robertson, “How an obscure conservative theory became the Trump era’s go-to nerd phrase,” Politico, February 25, 2018, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/25/overton-window-explained-definition-meaning-217010 ; Chris Weigant, “Bernie moves the Overton Window on single-payer,” Huffpost, September 13, 2017, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bernie-moves-the-overton-window-on-single-payer_b_59b9d3dfe4b06b71800c36a3 of acceptable discourse to include formerly fringe positions on immigration, women’s rights, and other issues. 14 E.g. Aaron Sankin and Will Carless, “The Hate Report: Article ‘normalizes’ a neo-Nazi, internet flips out,” Reveal News, December 1, 2017, https://revealnews.org/blog/the-hate-report-article-normalizes-a-neo-nazi-internet-flips-out/
In this report, PEN America uses the term “right-wing extremism” to describe the radical, anti-democratic ideologies that in recent years have been exerting steadily greater influence on mainstream U.S. politics. 15 The historian Kathleen Belew defines the white power movement as the broad social movement that brought together Klan, neo-Nazis, skinhead, militia, radical tax resistor and other militant right-wing activists in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. See “Are We Witnessing the Mainstreaming of White Power in America?” Ezra Klein Show, The New York Times, November 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-kathleen-belew.html Right-wing extremism is often explicit in its aim to degrade or dismiss the rights of people of color—with white supremacy and white nationalism playing a major animating role. Further, while we use “right-wing extremism” to encompass actors and events that are not explicitly about race—such as the January 6 insurrection—we recognize that almost invariably, such movements are ultimately tied to racial, religious, and ethnic antagonism. An analysis by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) shows that during the Trump era, far-right violent plots and attacks have disproportionately affected racial, religious, and ethnic minorities. 16 More about the CSIS methodology: Data compiled by the CSIS Transnational Threats Project from the START Global Terrorism Database (1994-2020), Janes Terrorism and Insurgency Events (2009-2020), RAND Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents (1994-2009), and the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Hate, Extremism, Anti-Semitism, and Terrorism (HEAT) Map. Also compiled events as recorded in ADL publications and Federal Bureau of Investigation annual reports and news release (1994-2020). Cross-referenced events against local and national news sources, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. Read full methodology here: https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/200616_Jones_Methodology_v3_0.pdf .
Racial animosity can play a role in fostering anti-democratic inclinations, as well. A significant 2020 analysis of Republican voters found a clear statistical relationship between higher scores on an ethnic-antagonism scale and a voter’s willingness to support antidemocratic statements like “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast we may have to use force to save it” and “strong leaders sometimes have to bend the rules in order to get things done.” 17 Larry M. Bartels, “Ethnic antagonism erodes Republicans’ commitment to democracy,” PNAS, August 31, 2020, https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2007747117 ; Zack Beauchamp, “The Republican revolt against democracy, explained in 13 charts,” Vox, March 1, 2021, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22274429/republicans-anti-democracy-13-charts .
Alarmingly, right-wing extremists are currently enjoying broader acceptance in the political mainstream than at any other time in the post–civil rights era. 18 “Are We Witnessing the Mainstreaming of White Power in America?” Ezra Klein Show, The New York Times, November 16, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-kathleen-belew.html . University of Chicago Staff Page: https://history.uchicago.edu/directory/kathleen-belew . Heidi Beirich, a co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism who has tracked extremists since the 1990s, told USA Today: “I don’t think we’ve ever had so many candidates, in so many parts of the country, who are openly conspiracists or connected to white nationalists or various forms of extremism.… It just shows how much fringe ideas have been mainstreamed over the course of the last five or six years.” 19 Will Carless, “Fringe ideas are going mainstream in US politics. That’s a danger to democracy, extremism experts say,” USA Today, January 26, 2022. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/01/26/democracy-politics-extremism-white-supremacy/9213808002/ .
The current rise of right-wing extremism is also inextricably linked to the rise of disinformation and fraudulent news. Long-standing tools of far-right extremists, these deceptive tactics are now deployed by some right-wing politicians and operatives as well as the larger, Trump-affiliated, Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement to influence the U.S. political system.
In 2017 and 2019, PEN America published reports examining the corrosive implications of disinformation and recommended steps to combat it while protecting free expression rights. Our 2019 report stated that “fraudulent news remains a salient threat to our politics” and warned, “Political parties, campaigns, regulators and technology companies are on notice that the integrity of the 2020 US election will depend upon their ability to mount more effective defenses than exist today.” 20 PEN America. “Truth on the Ballot: Fraudulent News, the Midterm Elections, and Prospects for 2020,” March 2019, https://pen.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Truth-on-the-Ballot-report.pdf . Publishing that report before the 2020 election, we did not anticipate that the false belief that President Biden and the Democratic Party “stole” the 2020 presidential election—the so-called “Big Lie”—would become a sustained, animating force on the right, or that 2020’s election-denial efforts could serve as a practice run for more consequential operations in the future. 21 Karen Yourish, Larry Buchanan and Denise Lu, “The 147 Republicans Who Voted to Overturn Election Results.” The New York Times, January 7, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/07/us/elections/electoral-college-biden-objectors.html
As far-right views increasingly infuse the modern Republican Party, an increasing number of journalists will face the challenge of reporting on far-right political candidates or elected officials. These include challenges such as how and when to report on those individuals’ fraudulent or inflammatory statements, how to cover violence or threats of violence at the polls, and how to recognize extremism and disinformation as they infiltrate a variety of policy issues. Responding to these challenges will require conceptual shifts in how outlets approach covering politics. As Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan put it in August 2022, in her final column for the paper, “One thing is certain. News outlets can’t continue to do speech, rally and debate coverage—the heart of campaign reporting—in the same old way. They will need to lean less on knee-jerk live coverage and more on reporting that relentlessly provides meaningful context.” 22 Margaret Sullivan, “My final column: 2024 and the dangers ahead,” The Washington Post, August 21, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/08/21/margaret-sullivan-last-column-trump-2024-media/
Based on PEN America’s interviews with 75 journalists, academics, and other experts, this report examines the challenges faced by the press in covering these dynamics. It offers an assessment of debates within the industry about how to report on mainstream political radicalization, what lessons can be learned from reporters experienced in covering extremism, and shifts in newsroom approaches to covering extremism, including addressing the “balance imperative” and false equivalence, fraudulent or inflammatory statements made by elected officials and candidates, violence or threats at the polls, and the deluge of disinformation infiltrating a variety of policy issues. It also notes the increasing turn toward adopting a pro-democracy approach when covering voting rights, electoral processes, antidemocratic legislation, and the normalization of political violence. It ends with a set of recommendations for how newsrooms and their supporters can help foster fair and responsible reporting in the public interest.
The press continues to play a crucial role in curbing extremist influence and holding elected officials accountable for embracing or condoning extremism—in other words, in serving as a watchdog for our democracy. PEN America offers this report to uphold this vital work.
PEN America Experts
Published November 2022
The Radicalization of the American Right
“People have trouble seeing the type of extremism that comes wrapped in the American flag.” —Samantha Kutner, anti-extremism researcher 23 PEN America interview with Samantha Kutner, International Center for Counter-Terrorism, October 15, 2021
The term “extremism” implies ideas that are outside the mainstream of political discourse. In the past few years, however, extremists have penetrated national, state, and local politics in startling numbers. In January 2022, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that at least 100 candidates running in the 2022 midterm elections have associated with extremists such as Oath Keepers and Proud Boys or promoted extreme views, including conspiracy theories—”and the list,” ADL said, “continues to grow on a near-daily basis.” 24 Anti-Defamation League. “Extremism on the Ballot.” January 25, 2022, https://www.adl.org/blog/extremism-on-the-ballot-in-2022 Nine months later, The Washington Post found that 299 Republican candidates—more than half of all GOP candidates for state and local office, in 48 of 50 states—were “election deniers,” propagating the myth that President Biden lost the 2020 election. 25 Adrain Blanco and Amy Gardner, “Where Republican Election Deniers are on the Ballot Near You,” The Washington Post, October 6, 2022, washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2022/election-deniers-running-for-office-elections-2022/?itid=hp-top-table-main-t-3 The news outlet FiveThirtyEight offered broadly comparable figures that same month, calculating that out of 552 total Republican candidates for office in the then-upcoming midterms, at least 201 denied the legitimacy of President Biden’s victory. 26 “60 Percent Of Americans Will Have An Election Denier On The Ballot This Fall,” FiveThirtyEight, Updated Oct. 28, 2022, https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/republicans-trump-election-fraud/ The Insurrection Index, an online database built by the voting rights group Public Wise, has documented 233 sitting politicians or candidates who participated in or “directly supported” the January 6 Capitol insurrection. 27 Insurrection Index: https://insurrectionindex.org/ . As of October 19, 2022.
News coverage over the past five years has familiarized audiences with groups like the Proud Boys, Boogaloo Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters, but such groups represent only part of a complex, active realm that also encompasses conspiracy movements like QAnon, loose networks of white supremacists, and subcultures like “involuntary celibates” (aka “incels,” who are hostile and sometimes violent toward women). Some far-right extremists are motivated primarily by racial or ethnic bigotry, including xenophobia, and others by extreme opposition to the federal government and its policies. While white supremacist extremism presents the greatest threat of violence in the United States, other forms of extremism, fed by disinformation and anti-government beliefs are also fomenting violence and raising threats. 28 Thomas T Cullen, “The Grave Threats of White Supremacy and Far-Right Extremism,” The New York Times, February 22, 2019, https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdva/pr/opinion-grave-threats-white-supremacy-and-far-right-extremism Among the most pernicious anti-government movements are opponents of Covid-19 health mandates and proponents of Trump’s claims of election fraud and the Biden Administration’s illegitimacy. 29 Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny,“From the Capitol to the city council: How extremism in the U.S. shifted after January 6,” NBC News, January 4, 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/extremism-us-jan-6-capitol-rcna10731 .
Communities of color, women, immigrants, and members of religious minorities are the primary targets of political violence, harassment, and discriminatory rhetoric perpetrated by right-wing extremists and their enablers. The Center for Strategic & International Studies compiled information from several government and civil society databases and found that between 2015 and 2020, 74 percent of violent far-right attacks were against minority communities and locations associated with them, like mosques, synagogues, churches, and even grocery stores located in minority neighborhoods. 30 CSIS, “The Tactics and Targets of Domestic Terrorists,” Seth Jones, Catrina Doxsee and Nicholas Harrington, July 30, 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/tactics-and-targets-domestic-terrorists Between 1994 and 2020, 46 percent of right-wing extremist attacks struck private individuals, property, and religious institutions selected due to their race, ethnicity, or religion. Women’s health clinics and government facilities were also vulnerable targets. 31 More about the CSIS methodology: Data compiled by the CSIS Transnational Threats Project from the START Global Terrorism Database (1994-2020), Janes Terrorism and Insurgency Events (2009-2020), RAND Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents (1994-2009), and the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Hate, Extremism, Anti-Semitism, and Terrorism (HEAT) Map. Also compiled events as recorded in ADL publications and Federal Bureau of Investigation annual reports and news release (1994-2020). Cross-referenced events against local and national news sources, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. Read full methodology here: https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/200616_Jones_Methodology_v3_0.pdf . Of 443 murders carried out by extremists between 2012 and 2021, the Anti-Defamation League reported that 244 (55 percent) were by self-described white supremacists. 32 Anti-Defamation League, “Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2021,” https://www.adl.org/murder-and-extremism-2021
It is important to note that far-left terrorist incidents carried out by groups like anarchists, anti-fascists, and violent environmentalists have also been on the rise in recent years, according to CSIS and the ADL. But the size, organization, quantity, and casualties of terrorism and hate crimes perpetrated by the far right vastly exceed those on the left. 33 CSIS. “The Military, Police and the Rise of Terrorism in the United States.” By Seth G. Jones, Catrina Doxsee, and Grace Hwang, April 12, 2021, https://www.csis.org/analysis/military-police-and-rise-terrorism-united-states. Between 2012 and 2021, left-wing violent attacks made up only 4 percent of the 443 extremist-related murders carried out in the United States, according to the ADL. 34 Anti-Defamation League. “Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2021.” https://www.adl.org/murder-and-extremism-2021 Seventy-five percent of those murders were perpetrated by right-wing extremists. 35 Anti-Defamation League. “Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2021.” https://www.adl.org/murder-and-extremism-2021
The Role of Conservative Media in Radicalizing the Right
While this report deals primarily with the mainstream media, 36 By “mainstream media,” we use social scientist Yochai Benkler’s definition. Mainstream media, according to Benkler, is characterized by its willingness and capacity to identify, resist and correct falsehoods (source: Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2018). Communications scholars and media observers have named the following news organizations to define the “mainstream,” but the list is not necessarily comprehensive: ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, the AP, and NPR. it would be incomplete without also examining the avowedly partisan conservative media, a separate news ecosystem. Scholars and journalists interviewed for this report express concern about this growing, highly influential media sector—which encompasses digital publications, podcasts, radio, and cable TV, led by the colossus of Fox News—and its role in spreading disinformation, amplifying extremist talking points, pushing a radical agenda, and undermining trust in mainstream media coverage. They warn that the right-wing mediascape will outlast former President Donald Trump and will continue to radicalize conservative audiences and policy. 37 See e.g. Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. “They Don’t Give a Damn about Governing: Conservative Media’s Influence on the Republican Party,” Jackie Calmes, July 27, 2015, https://shorensteincenter.org/conservative-media-influence-on-republican-party-jackie-calmes/ ; Brian Stelter, “Experts warn about the radicalizing power of right-wing media.” CNN, December 21, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/21/media/right-wing-radicalization-election-results/index.html ; David Roberts, “How conservative media helped the far-right take over the Republican Party,” Vox, July 30, 2015, https://www.vox.com/2015/7/30/9074761/conservative-media-republican-party ; Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2018
In 2020, the Pew Research Center found that nearly two-thirds of self-identified Republicans and Republican-leaning independents ranked Fox News as their most trusted source for political and election coverage. 38 ohn Gramlich, “5 facts about Fox News.” Pew Research Center, April 8, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/08/five-facts-about-fox-news/ Meanwhile, the election and presidency of Donald Trump elevated the national profile of far-right outlets such as Newsmax, One America News Network, and Breitbart News. 39 Benjamin Fearnow, “Fox News Receives Twice as Many Daily Republican Viewers as Newsmax, Poll Finds,” Newsweek, March 9, 2021, https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-receives-twice-many-daily-republican-viewers-newsmax-poll-finds-1574938 ; Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 52 These outlets have massive reach, aided by the rise of social media and its algorithms enabling hyper-partisan content to go viral. 40 See e.g. Yochai Benkler et al, “Study: Breitbart-led right wing media ecosystem altered broader media agenda,” Columbia Journalism Review, March 3, 2017, https://www.cjr.org/analysis/breitbart-media-trump-harvard-study.php
The powerful organizing capacity of right-wing media, especially talk radio hosts, also means that those who defy the GOP’s “most vocal, most ideological, most extreme elements” are subject to primary challenges and other political consequences at the behest of these right-wing media personalities. There has never been an equivalent on the partisan left, as left-of center media has remained small in comparison to its right-wing counterparts. 41 David Roberts, “How conservative media helped the far-right take over the Republican Party,’ Vox, July 30, 2015, https://www.vox.com/2015/7/30/9074761/conservative-media-republican-party . See also Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, “They Don’t Give a Damn about Governing: Conservative Media’s Influence on the Republican Party,” Jackie Calmes. July 27, 2015, https://shorensteincenter.org/conservative-media-influence-on-republican-party-jackie-calmes/
“The Right and the Rest”
Since its founding, modern right-wing media has defined itself in opposition to the journalistic norms and practices of mainstream news. The conservative media ecosystem can arguably be traced back to the 1920s, but its size and influence surged in the late 1980s, in part due to the FCC’s repeal of the Fairness Doctrine during the Reagan Administration. 42 The Fairness Doctrine was a federal regulatory measure in place from 1927 to 1987, under the Federal Radio Commission and its successor organization the Federal Communications Commission. Under this doctrine, broadcasters were required to cover controversial issues of public importance, and were further required to ensure such coverage was fair by accurately reporting opposing views, and by affording reasonable opportunity for those who disagreed. One major effect of this doctrine, which was eliminated under the Reagan Administration, was to limit exclusively partisan networks. See Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 320-322 Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, whose show became nationally syndicated in 1988, set the incendiary tone, laying the groundwork for Fox News, which launched in 1996, and for later pundits like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson. 43 Anthony Nadler and A.J. Bauer, News on the Right: Studying Conservative News Cultures, Oxford University Press, 2019, p. 3; Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 317 As right-wing voices reached mass audiences in the 1990s, 44 Fox News combined Limbaugh’s model with CNN’s 24-hour news format. Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts, Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics, Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 322. they created a conservative news identity, 45 Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph Cappella. Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment. Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 30, 179. defined by criticism of mainstream media, efforts to undermine trust in government, race- and gender-baiting language, pressures to push Republican politicians to embrace extreme positions, and a viewpoint-driven, rather than fact-based, approach to news. 46 Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 321-322.
Right-wing pundits and politicians have been particularly effective at casting mainstream media as having a partisan “liberal bias.” 47 Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph Cappella. Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment. Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 161. In a significant 2018 study of online media, scholars at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society showed that digital news consists of two ecosystems. The study found that the two ecosystems, while separate, do not fall neatly along right-left partisan lines. Instead, the scholars found a divide between “the right and the rest”: 48 Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 74. an asymmetrically polarized mediascape with a discrete right-wing ecosystem that operates in a fundamentally different way from the rest of U.S. media. 49 Robert Faris, Hal Roberts, Bruce Etling et al. “Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.” Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, August 2017, 8, 17. This reality also reflects a gutting of the center-right media landscape, determined by researchers to be “the least populated and least influential portion of the media spectrum” (Faris et al 2017, 18). Researchers also emphasized that this asymmetric polarization, while examined more rigorously in recent years, pre-dates the rise of Trump and has deeper historical roots: It likely that Trump benefited from existing asymmetric polarization as much as his candidacy was a cause of it (Faris et al 2017, 37).
The distinction between right-wing media and “the rest,” these scholars found, is only partly tied to partisanship or political ideology but more fundamentally to each side’s capacity to identify, resist, and correct falsehoods. The mainstream media ecosystem has a diverse architecture made of many competing, high-profile sites that, whatever their flaws, generally attempt to adhere to facts. It’s a framework that, the scholars say, collectively “imposes higher reputational costs on sites and authors who propagate rumor and provides avenues for relatively rapid fact checking, criticism of false claims, and rapid dissemination of and coalescence around corrected narratives.” By contrast, right-wing media revolves around high levels of trust in single outlets, creating “positive feedback for bias-confirming statements as a central feature of its normal operation.” 50 Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 74.
In an interview with Boston Review, Yochai Benkler of the Berkman Klein Center elaborated on the distinctions:
We have an insular right-wing media ecosystem (Fox News, Breitbart, the Washington Times, Daily Caller, and the Gateway Pundit, for example) that has spun out of control and created a propaganda feedback loop, in which what is true or false is entirely beside the point. Its defining characteristic is pushing content that reinforces identity and political in-group membership. To contrast, the left-wing media, which includes outlets such as Daily Kos, Mother Jones, and HuffPost, is … anchored in traditional mainstream media—the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and which stretches all the way to editorially conservative mainstream publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Forbes. In most cases, the left-wing outlets share the reporting and journalistic traditions of mainstream media, and even where they do not, they are constrained in how far they can stray from the truth by the fact that their audiences pay significant attention to these media. So the two wings of the media ecosystem are not operating under the same rules. 51 Deborah Chasman, “Selling Outrage: An Interview with Yochai Benkler,” Boston Review, November 12, 2018, https://bostonreview.net/articles/yochai-benkler-deborah-chasman-selling-outrage/
As journalist David Roberts wrote for Vox in 2015, conservative media is “now a full media ecosystem; there’s no longer any need for conservatives to stray outside it to stay informed, or ‘informed.’” 52 David Roberts, “How conservative media helped the far-right take over the Republican Party,’ Vox, July 30, 2015, https://www.vox.com/2015/7/30/9074761/conservative-media-republican-party While defamation law may act as a deterrent to airing egregious or damaging disinformation, conservative media pays little social penalty for doing so. (The pending lawsuits filed by Dominion and Smartmatic claiming that Fox News and its mouthpieces caused irreparable harm by promoting false claims that their voting machines intentionally rigged the 2020 election have yet to be decided.)
Right-wing media also provides its audience with alternate interpretations of mainstream media news. Drawing from interviews with Tea Party activists, A.J. Bauer of the University of Alabama told PEN America: “Conservative media gives them a narrative for when they’re consuming news from these other outlets. So if they are reading The New York Times, they are already reading it through a lens that they’ve been given through that other ecosystem.” 53 PEN America interview with A.J. Bauer, Assistant Professor at the College of Communication and Information Sciences, University of Alabama, January 6, 2022
Animus toward the mainstream media is an aspect of this distorted lens, contributing significantly to the increasing distrust and anger conservative audiences hold for mainstream outlets. 54 See Meredith Conroy, “Why being ‘anti-media’ is now part of the GOP identity,” FiveThirtyEight.com, April 5, 2021, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-being-anti-media-is-now-part-of-the-gop-identity/ ; Anthony Nadler and Doron Taussig, “Conservatives’ mistrust of media is rooted in the feeling journalists want to ostracize them,” NiemanLab, April 19, 2022, https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/04/conservatives-mistrust-of-media-is-rooted-in-the-feeling-journalists-want-to-ostracize-them/ After Donald Trump called the news media “the enemy of the people” 55 David Remnick, “Trump and the Enemies of the People”, The New Yorker, August 1, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/trump-and-the-enemies-of-the-people (a phrase favored by Joseph Stalin, among many others), a Quinnipiac poll found that 51 percent of Republicans agreed with that characterization. 56 Eli Watkins, “Poll: Majority of GOP agrees news media is ‘enemy of the people,’” CNN, August 15, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/14/politics/quinnipiac-media-gop/index.html
“Conservative media gives them a narrative for when they’re consuming news from these other outlets. So if they are reading The New York Times, they are already reading it through a lens that they’ve been given through that other ecosystem.”
A.J. Bauer, University of Alabama
Right-Wing Media Links Extremists to Conservative Audiences
Mis- and disinformation 57 PEN America defines “misinformation” as inaccurate or false information that is not necessarily created or disseminated with the intent to deceive, while “disinformation” as false content created or distributed with the intent to deceive. For more, see PEN America’s reports Hard News: Journalists and the Threat of Disinformation (April 2022); Truth on the Ballot: Fraudulent News, the Midterm Elections, and Prospects for 2020 (March 2019); and Faking News: Fraudulent News and the Fight for Truth (October 2017) are not limited to the right. 58 Toby Hopp, Patrick Ferrucci, and Chris J. Vargo, “Why Do People Share Ideologically Extreme, False, and Misleading Content on Social Media? A Self-Report and Trace Data-Based Analysis of Countermedia Content Dissemination on Facebook and Twitter,” Human Communication Research, 2020, 364. https://academic.oup.com/hcr/article/46/4/357/5840447?guestAccessKey=e1548abf-a0ae-469a-98f5-a9a04b0b769e Yet, the risks that disinformation poses when disseminated by the right-wing ecosystem, specifically, are uniquely high. The extensive reach of popular media organizations like Fox News and Breitbart to audiences on the right means that false or misleading information from them can be amplified faster, reach more people, and stay in circulation unchecked for longer than information from mainstream outlets. 59 David French, a former senior writer at The National Review, has said he thinks the publication “has a responsibility to criticize and debunk popular right-wing conspiracies if they gain a certain degree of currency” or “significant visibility.” Many other conservative journalists interviewed said that their publications should avoid directly publishing or sourcing disinformation but said they generally ignore and avoid fact-checking conspiracy content in the right-wing ecosystem. Multiple said conservative sites should instead focus on addressing challenges in mainstream media. Anthony Nadler, A.J. Bauer, and Magda Konieczna, “Conservative Newswork: a Report on the Values and Practices of Online Journalists on the Right, Columbia Journalism Review, March 31, 2020, https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/conservative-newswork-report-on-the-values-and-practices-of-online-journalists-on-the-right.php This structure makes the right-wing ecosystem an attractive propaganda vehicle for extremists looking to promote dangerous falsehoods or conspiracy theories about elections, democracy, and minority communities.
Since 2020, right-wing media has emerged as a major vector for Covid-related disinformation. 60 Linda So and Jason Szep, “Reuters unmasks Trump supporters who terrified U.S. election officials,” Reuters, November 9, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats/ The amplification of election-related disinformation, including conspiracy theories about mail-in-voter fraud, has been even more inflammatory, encouraging antidemocratic tactics such as the harassment and intimidation of poll workers 61 Linda So and Jason Szep, “Reuters unmasks Trump supporters who terrified U.S. election officials,” Reuters, November 9, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats/ and the political violence of January 6. 62 arnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Trump’s Facebook Ban Won’t Stop Conservative Disinformation. May 6, 2021, Steven Feldstein. https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/05/06/trump-s-facebook-ban-won-t-stop-conservative-disinformation-pub-84489
Just Security, “#StopTheSteal: Timeline of Social Media and Extremist Activities Leading to 1/6 Insurrection,” Atlantic Council’s DFRLab, February 10, 2021, https://www.justsecurity.org/74622/stopthesteal-timeline-of-social-media-and-extremist-activities-leading-to-1-6-insurrection/
Bill Keveney and Maria Puente, “How conservative media stoked baseless election-fraud claims that motivated DC rioters,” USA Today, January 11, 2021, https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2021/01/11/dc-riots-how-newsmax-oan-conservative-outlets-fueled-mob/6589298002/
Jim Rutenberg et al, “77 Days: Trump’s Campaign to Subvert the Election,” The New York Times, January 31, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/us/trump-election-lie.html
Fox News favorite Tucker Carlson elevated fictitious narratives and legitimized political violence with his Fox New documentary Patriot Purge, which claimed that January 6 was a “false flag” operation carried out by the federal government to provide cover for targeting and arresting conservatives. 63 Ben Smith, “Two Fox News Contributors Quit in Protest of Tucker Carlson’s January 6 Special,” The New York Times, November 21, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/21/business/jonah-goldberg-steve-hayes-quit-fox-tucker-carlson.html
In recent years, says Anthony Nadler, a conservative-news expert at Ursinus College, explicitly white supremacist publications have found new levels of success by being able to “infiltrate” the conservative media sphere—and national politics—through far-right outlets like Breitbart News. 64 Nevertheless, Nadler told PEN America, the majority of conservative media journalists and consumers he has profiled in his research, resist this association with white supremacist messaging, and remain committed to separating extremist sources from right-wing media. PEN America interview with Anthony Nadler, Associate Professor of Media and Communication Studies, Ursinus College, December 13, 2021 In 2019, researchers found a smoking gun when a leak of more than 900 emails revealed that in 2015 and 2016, Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller directly fed conspiracy theories and content from white nationalist sites to editors at Breitbart News. 65 Michael Edison Hayden, “Stephen Miller’s Affinity for White Nationalism Revealed in Leaked Emails,” Southern Poverty Law Center, November 12, 2019, https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/11/12/stephen-millers-affinity-white-nationalism-revealed-leaked-emails#conspiracy
A research team led by Benkler of the Berkman Klein Center found that the term “globalist,” widely recognized as an anti-Semitic dog whistle 66 See e.g. Eli Rosen, “Trump called Gary Cohen a ‘Globalist’. Here’s why some people find that offensive,” The Washington Post, March 9, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/03/09/trump-called-gary-cohn-a-globalist-heres-why-some-people-find-that-offensive/ ; American Jewish Committee, “Translate Hate: Globalist,” https://www.ajc.org/translatehate/globalist ; Rachel Barenblat, “Why ranting about globalism is anti-semitic,” The Forward, October 24, 2018, https://forward.com/community/412627/globalism-anti-semitism/ and until 2015 used primarily by white supremacist publication VDARE, was adopted and amplified by Breitbart and Steve Bannon, Trump’s campaign chief and senior White House strategist. By 2017, the term was in general use outside the right-wing ecosystem. In their 2018 book Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics, coauthors Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts describe the 2017 appearance of “globalist” in The New York Times as the end stage of the word’s path from white supremacist website to mainstream. 67 Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 128-131.
While the right-wing mediascape is insular, Benkler says that the mainstream media could potentially reach a meaningful segment of less hardline conservatives. In 2018 he told the Boston Review: “There is this chunk of between 15 and 25 percent of the population with political views that are more fluid,” who consume diverse media diets, from right-wing networks like Fox News to more mainstream sources. 68 Deborah Chasman, “Selling Outrage: An Interview with Yochai Benkler,” Boston Review, November 12, 2018, https://bostonreview.net/articles/yochai-benkler-deborah-chasman-selling-outrage/ This audience may overlap with a broader group of media consumers that PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel has termed the “informationally adrift”—those overwhelmed by and skeptical of the news media who seek trusted and verified content. 69 Suzanne Nossel, “How to Save People From Drowning in a Sea of Misinformation,” Slate, December 15, 2021, https://slate.com/technology/2021/12/information-consumers-misinformation-adrift-media-literacy.html In reaching this segment of the American public, mainstream media can meaningfully dispute and disempower disinformation and extremism in the right-wing media ecosystem. 70 Yochai Benkler and Deborah Chasman, “Selling Outrage,” Boston Review, November 12, 2018, https://bostonreview.net/articles/yochai-benkler-deborah-chasman-selling-outrage/
Challenges in Reporting on Rising Extremism
“We are not the fringe. We are the base of the party.” —Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene 71 @patriottakes, https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1466104574473912321?s=20 (Clip of Marjorie Taylor Greene appearing on white nationalist Steve Bannon’s podcast “War Room)
All journalists PEN America interviewed who had substantial experience reporting on national politics, fourteen in total, say that covering the Trump campaign and presidency presented unprecedented challenges—from personal attacks made by Trump, his staff, and his supporters, to navigating how to debunk lies and conspiracy theories espoused by Trump and his administration, to the growing explicitness of racial animus in politics. PEN America also interviewed 22 reporters with experience covering right-wing extremism on beats like law enforcement, national security, race, and technology.
All but five of the reporters interviewed for this report began reporting on far-right extremism only after 2016. The consensus among all those interviewed is that covering domestic extremism has evolved since 2016, with many media outlets sharpening their focus on the growing radicalization of the Republican Party and the rising influence of right-wing extremist groups in state and local politics. Journalists with several years of experience covering domestic terrorism and extremism say that, while the industry has begun establishing or revising best practices, determining how to cover the intersection of politics and extremism remains an active debate and an ongoing challenge. Several interviewees say that extremism in local politics is a particular concern, while others emphasize the troubling rise of new extremist groups. 72 PEN America interview with Odette Yousef, National Security Reporter on Extremism, NPR, December 6, 2021; PEN America interview with Michael Edison Hayden, senior investigative reporter, Southern Poverty Law Center, October 8, 2021; PEN America interview with Kelly Weill, reporter, The Daily Beast, November 8, 2021; PEN America interview with Jared Holt, fellow, Digital Forensic Lab, Atlantic Council, October 20, 2021. See also Collins and Zadrozny for NBC News, and Jared Holt’s latest report for the Atlantic Council, “After the Insurrection: How Domestic Extremists Adapted and Evolved After the January 6 US Capitol Attack.” January 2022. As journalists report on extremism at school board meetings, on city councils, and at polling places, they continue to face the question of who and what qualifies as “extremist” in an increasingly polarized national polity.
In this report section, PEN America examines how reporting on extremism has evolved in the past six years—from the 2016 election season, to the Trump administration, to today. We also examine contemporary insights from journalists on how to responsibly cover extremism in politics today.
The CNN newsroom in Atlanta. Credit: Charles Atkeison
The “Blurring Line” Between Right-Wing Extremism and Mainstream Politics
Many interviewees observe that extremism and politics have been gradually merging into the same beat. Odette Yousef, the national security reporter on extremism at NPR, says that this “blurring line” calls for “much more education for political reporters on extremism,” especially at the local level. “I find myself in situations where I’m trying to report on something that I think is really a politics story, but it’s also definitely an extremism story,” Yousef says. As “Trump has mainstreamed what used to be extremist positions on things like immigration and made it mainstream within the Republican Party … I think there’s a general struggle for journalists to figure out what’s going on in our politics and how to report on it.” 73 PEN America interview with Odette Yousef, National Security Reporter on Extremism, NPR, December 6, 2021
A.C. Thompson of ProPublica and Frontline finds himself grappling with how to describe radicalized individuals who are not affiliated with organized groups but are loyal to Trump. “After Unite the Right in 2017,” he says, “my colleagues and I were saying that the most dangerous extremist in the land was the president, and that he was most likely to catalyze hate violence. We were focusing on this broader group of people who were very enamored by the president and who were adopting more and more extremist, militant views, but we’ve struggled with how to talk about this massive group of people who are now unaffiliated but radicalized.” 74 PEN America interview with A.C. Thompson, reporter, ProPublica, December 8, 2021
Covering domestic extremism for the Daily Beast, technology reporter Kelly Weill has wrestled with how to portray groups that are increasingly savvy about how they present themselves. She says that when writing, for example, about attempts by American Patriots USA (APUSA) to make inroads with Republican lawmakers in Georgia, including by supporting GOP candidates for state legislature, she observed that the group brands itself as a pro-gun, conservative constitutionalist group and strives to obscure its ties to the white supremacist movement. But its leader, Chester Doles, is a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazi National Alliance, and in 2020 the Southern Poverty Law Center designated APUSA as a hate group. 75 Kelly Weil, “American Patriots USA’s Anti-Racist Rebrand is Going horribly Wrong,” Daily Beast, May 22, 2020, https://www.thedailybeast.com/american-patriots-usas-anti-racist-rebrand-is-going-horribly-wrong Further complicating her challenge, Weill points out that APUSA had deliberately styled itself after the 1990s Patriot movement, a diffuse right-wing, populist faction made up of armed militias, sovereign citizens, and tax protesters. This movement has a long history of extremism and has carried out domestic terror attacks but remains formally separate from white supremacist groups. 76 E.g. Key Events and Crimes of the Patriot Movement, Southern Poverty Law Center, April 16, 2015, https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2015/04/15/key-events-and-crimes-patriot-movement
Extremists have become so used to trying to deceive the press, explained Mother Jones reporter Ali Breland in a January 2022 interview, that they even have a term for it. “It’s called ‘hiding your power level,’ and it’s a common trope among far-right groups to try and whitewash or sanitize their perspectives so they’re not seen as bad.” 77 Gretchen A. Peck, “At the Front Lines, on the Homefront,” Editor and Publisher, January 6, 2022, https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/at-the-front-lines-on-the-homefront,212640
Weill notes that white supremacists post-Charlottesville understand that anti-government stances are more palatable to mainstream conservatives than overt racism, and have sought to rebrand accordingly. “There’s so much subterfuge in how these groups brand themselves,” she says, adding that “it’s tough to label these groups when they are always shifting their presentation and their self-descriptions. I have used the term ‘far right’ a lot, maybe even as a crutch, because it seems to be pretty encompassing of a lot of people’s rhetoric. As these views metastasize out from organized groups to an increasingly radicalized Republican Party, the term ‘far right’ just describes a lot of people these days. I aim for specifics where I can. But there’s no uniform labeling, and it’s something that I personally deal with from story to story.” 78 PEN America interview with Kelly Weill, reporter, The Daily Beast, November 8, 2021
"We’ve struggled with how to talk about this massive group of people who are now unaffiliated but radicalized."
A.C. Thompson, ProPublica
Reporting on Racial Resentment and “White America”
Journalists are also confronting new challenges in reporting on the increasingly overt role of racial resentment in U.S. politics. A.C. Thompson, for instance, notes that some voters express high levels of racial resentment in surveys but don’t necessarily condone, much less engage in, political violence. 79 PEN America interview with A.C. Thompson, reporter, ProPublica, December 8, 2021 Astead Herndon, national political correspondent for The New York Times, says that journalists have to evolve with the changing political and racial landscape. “We cannot assume violence will not happen,” he says, “or that election results will be believed.” 80 PEN America interview with Astead Herndon, national political correspondent, The New York Times, November 12, 2021
Journalists like Perry Bacon Jr. (formerly of FiveThirtyEight), Sean Illing (Vox), and Farai Chideya (Our Body Politic) have written about the need to report on whiteness, especially its role in politics, since 2016. 81 Farai Chideya. “The Call-to-Whiteness: The Rise of the New White Nationalism and Inadequate Establishment Whiteness.” January 9, 2021. https://faraic.medium.com/the-call-to-whiteness-9a27b5a0b347 ; Sean Illing, “White identity politics is about more than racism,” Vox, April 27, 2019, https://www.vox.com/2019/4/26/18306125/white-identity-politics-trump-racism-ashley-jardina As Bacon wrote in 2021: “Like a lot of political reporters pre-Trump, I largely covered racial issues through the prism of people of color—writing stories about the Black vote in state X, or the Latino vote in state Y. I didn’t really think as much about white people as having a racial identity and how that might shape their political views.” 82 Perry Bacon Jr, “What the Trump Era Taught Me About Covering Politics,” FiveThirtyEight, February 22, 2021. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/nine-lessons-i-learned-about-political-reporting-while-covering-trump/ Farai Chideya argues that a key reason white nationalism has been largely absent from the public eye is “the inability of media and of many individuals to ascribe racial/group characteristics to whiteness in the way blackness is grouped and tracked, or, in the context of terrorism, Muslim beliefs.” 83 Farai Chideya, “The-Call-to-Whiteness,” Farai.com, https://farai.com/the-call-to-whiteness/
Tia Mitchell, Washington correspondent for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, tells PEN America that political reporters need greater awareness of white identity politics and white voters—not as the default perspective but as its own brand of identity politics, ripe for interrogation. “I think the way white people view their identity in politics has changed,” Mitchell says, “but we’re still struggling with how to make it all make sense, and how to cover white identity politics with the same vigor and curiosity that we cover other types of identity politics.” 84 PEN America interview with Tia Mitchell, Washington correspondent, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 2, 2021
Mitchell says that journalists have been reluctant to delve into white identity politics because most journalists are themselves white, 85 See e.g. Elizabeth Grieco, “Newsroom employees are less diverse than U.S. workers overall,” Pew Research Center, November 2, 2018, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/02/newsroom-employees-are-less-diverse-than-u-s-workers-overall/ and “white people have a hard time speaking frankly about race and racism.” Moreover, she says, “white supremacy and racism play into white identity politics. That makes it harder to write and report about whiteness. These are conversations that require a truth-telling that America isn’t really used to.” 86 PEN America interview with Tia Mitchell, Washington correspondent, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 2, 2021
Another reason for the reluctance to focus on whiteness is that traditionally, many of those most fixated on white identity, and most likely to celebrate it, have been white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Discussions of white identity are further complicated by the heterogeneity of the segment of the U.S. population that may be considered white. Those classified as white may include Hispanics, Jews, Muslims, Arab Americans, multiracial individuals, and members of other religious, ethnic, and racial groups—who may not identify as white and may themselves be targeted by extremists. As with all such groupings, white people encompass a wide range of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, making it impossible to discuss white identity as a single, unified characteristic.
Notwithstanding those complexities, Andale Gross, the race and ethnicity editor at the Associated Press, says that he and his team are developing a reporting beat around “white America.” “As much as certain parts of our society want to pretend they’re on the sidelines,” he says, “no one is on the sidelines when it comes to race in America. You have a stake whether you know it or not… One of my reporters has been saying this for a while—that we’re just letting white folks off the hook and at the same time not being fair to them and letting them be part of the conversation.” 87 PEN America interview with Andale Gross, race and ethnicity editor, Associated Press, November 30, 2021
Retooling the Newsroom and Adapting to New Realities
Since Trump was elected in 2016, some newsrooms have been able to add positions for national correspondents focusing on domestic extremism. 88 Examples: Hannah Allam is the Washington Post’s national security reporter focusing on extremism and domestic terrorism. Odette Yousef is NPR’s national security correspondent focusing on extremism. The 2020 presidential election, Trump’s subsequent refusal to concede, the January 6 Capitol insurrection, and Trump supporters’ ongoing efforts to undermine the country’s electoral system have prompted additional new beats, among them democracy, government, and voting and elections. 89 Perry Bacon Jr, “The rise of a
