By Jakob Emerson
Reporting on the rise of white supremacy — without lending a hand to the hate
Racially-charged. Racially-motivated. Racially-tinged. These terms are often used by reporters from a plethora of news organizations to describe situations that in any other circumstance, would simply be characterized as racist.
Take for example Iowa Representative Steve King, who in an interview with The New York Times this past January said, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?”
The following day, CNN political analyst and Vanity Fair contributor David Drucker tweeted “@SteveKingIA said he ‘initiated’ a convo today w/ @SteveScalise to inform them he would speak on floor to address his racially-tinged remarks.”
Though this tweet lays out the beginning stages of the House Republicans’ eventual move to strip King from the Judiciary and Agriculture Committees four days after his initial remarks, other House representatives were quick to jump on Drucker’s reporting on the issue.
“You spelled ‘racist’ wrong,” tweeted back New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic darling with a flair for dramatic tweet-storms.
She continued, “At this point those who use the terms ‘racially-tinged’ or ‘racially-charged’ to describe white supremacy should be prepared to explain why they chose to employ those terms instead of ‘racist’/ ‘racism.’ If the answer is their own discomfort, they’re protecting the wrong people.”
Another reaction to King’s remarks came from NBC News, which issued a statement to their reporters saying “Be careful to avoid characterizing [King’s] remarks as racist. It is okay to attribute to others as in ‘what many are calling racist’ or something like that.”
Statements such as this, from one of the top news media organizations in the country, beg the question: When is it okay for journalists to call someone or their actions racist?
Murrey Jacobson, National Affairs Editor at PBS NewsHour, pondered that question when reporting on the massacre of 51 people at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand this March.
“On the one hand, we’re not there to cover the viewer’s eyes from the realities of the news, and people need to understand what’s going on for real. On the other hand, we certainly don’t want to quote from the hate speech. That doesn’t seem necessary for our piece.”
The 28-year-old Australian man responsible for the shooting published a 74-page manifesto before the attack titled “The Great Replacement,” where he employed anti-immigrant rhetoric and described President Donald Trump as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” One week later, the Chief Censor of New Zealand, David Shanks, declared it illegal to possess or distribute the manifesto anywhere in the country.
New Zealand isn’t the only place where white supremacist and anti-immigrant attacks are on the rise. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, far-right attacks in the United States between 2007 and 2011 were less than five per year. In 2017 alone, that number had grown to 31 attacks.
“We wanted to make sure viewers understood this man’s history, and that he had written this not so long before the shootings,” said Jacobson. “We were very careful that day about what kind of unintentional platform we could give to the manifesto.”
That unintentional platform is exactly what groups like the New Jersey European Heritage Association have learned to manipulate.
Earlier this year, the white supremacy group took to Twitter to announce their planned rally on the campus of Princeton University. News organizations from across New Jersey, the university and nearby Philadelphia reported on the upcoming march, and a counter-coalition quickly formed.
On the day of the planned rally in mid-January, hundreds of protesters organized on campus, only to find a handful of representatives from the organization that had purportedly planned the event.
Later that day, the NJEH announced the rally had all been a hoax, followed by a message on their Twitter page stating, “Our organization has received an unprecedented amount of publicity, media coverage, and website traffic. Hundreds of people across the state are eagerly awaiting to join our ranks.”
The New Jersey group, whose creed is stated to be “securing the existence of our people and a future for White children,” had exploited the media for their own gain. With these actions by white supremacist groups becoming more common, the role of the reporter has expanded. Not only does the racial intention of a certain group or individual have to be interpreted by the reporter, but the consequential results of one’s own reporting must be considered as well.
Regarding the line between thorough reporting and the spreading of hate speech, Jacobson said, “You can argue whether we say it long enough, explicitly enough or frequently enough, but we try to find a balance between saying it clearly for the viewer and not putting too much emphasis on repeating the message unintentionally.”
With American journalists almost guaranteed to face this issue in their career, it has become imperative for the news industry to adopt new standards and guidelines when reporting on racist acts.
And that is just what the Associated Press did. Long hailed as the news industry’s bible for any and all editorial rules and regulations when it comes to reporting, the AP Stylebook was amended this year to advise journalists against describing events as “racially-charged” or “racially-motivated.” Under the AP’s new guidelines, if an event can be interpreted by the reporter or editor as racist, then it should simply be called racist.
“Generally, if it’s clear — and not every case is clear — if you use the words that are considered to be racist or race-based, we generally do call that what it is,” said Jacobson when describing his team’s reporting on the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. “If it’s understood to be racist words or words that are full of hate — words that clearly denote white supremacy — then we should say that.”
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