How to Interview a White Nationalist — Don’t
NPR is getting roasted for giving white nationalist Jason Kessler a platform to spout his hateful views for several minutes as part of a taped interview. Kessler and a handful of other dead-enders got shut down hard in DC yesterday thanks to smart organizing and they had to leave our city under police escort. That means they weren’t able to tool around town after their march harassing, beating or killing any of our neighbors. Good.
Now that the counter-mobilization is over, I wanted to take a minute to underscore something that really shouldn’t need underscoring: there is no good reason to give a white nationalist a media platform. Ever.
You can cover white nationalists without giving them free airtime
Should news outlets interview white nationalists? Sure, but not like NPR did. White nationalist views can be interrogated without giving them several minutes of free air time. It’s easy to imagine a reported segment about Kessler’s deadly policy agenda and bullshit rhetoric instead of producing an interview with him that let him spout his views on air, even as they are challenged.
Further, white nationalists aren’t interested in civil conversation. They use mainstream media attention to fundraise, attack liberal institutions and cry about how unfair…
