Truthout: Those Nazi Rallies Are Not for the Left. They’re for Centrist Journalists.
Despite many white supremacist movements’ use of obfuscating language, it’s still glaringly obvious to many journalists what kind of rhetoric they stand for. The vast majority of local media outlets completely ignored the rally. In fact, KARK released a statement explicitly stating that the station did not plan to cover it, and encouraged other media outlets not to cover it either. According to Spencer Sunshine, associate fellow at Political Research Associates, this is an important strategy when dealing with the far right: Journalists should consider whether covering small demonstrations for racist causes is a newsworthy event, or if it’s just giving hate groups free publicity.
“Media outlets need to take special care in how they craft their coverage of racist organizing,” Sunshine told Truthout. “Indeed, in the last couple years, organized racists have received a gratuitous amount of media coverage, which has helped inflate the perception of their importance.… It should be remembered that the original American Nazi Party of George Lincoln Rockwell in the 1960s was actively harmed by a media ‘quarantine,’ which had been organized by Jewish groups in an attempt to cut off the party’s oxygen.”