The New York Times Profiled a White Nationalist, And Twitter Went Ballistic
A man makes a slashing motion across his throat toward counter-protesters as he marches with other white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the ‘alt-right’ during the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Image by Getty Images
By Aiden Pink November 26, 2017
The New York Times’s Saturday profile of white nationalist Tony Hovater garnered criticism for focusing on his video game habits and pasta recipe as well as his hatred of Jews.
Some took issue with the idea of pointing out “normal” aspects of racist anti-Semites:
Pssst, German Jews were also normal Germans before their fellow citizens turned on them and maybe we could stand to think about that a little more.
— Kristen Hanley Cardozo (@KHandozo) November 26, 2017
nazis will take your benefit of the doubt and use it to kill people like me
— Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) November 25, 2017
Others claimed that it pointed to systemic issues within the Times itself:
If there were a profile of Black Lives Matter, it would have white experts quoted. But profiles of Nazis always let the Nazis self-describe
— Heidi N Moore (@moorehn) November 26, 2017
the nyt reporter who profiled the ohio nazi basically confesses he didn’t get much. and that the intvws didn’t connect any dots for him. sometimes you gotta know when to kill a story. https://t.co/1VyuN0hNal pic.twitter.com/dRbte68N01
— Charlie Warzel (@cwarzel) November 25, 2017
A few critics argued that the piece was making a good point, subtly:
The New York Times isn’t normalizing hate by writing about it. It is showing that hate is already normal. And that is something of which we should all be terrified.
— Sarah Maslin Nir (@SarahMaslinNir) November 25, 2017
People have a weird expectation that profiles should explicitly tell the reader what to think, instead of trusting the reader. https://t.co/Cgm4WsChbQ
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) November 26, 2017
But others said that if that’s what Times reporter Richard Fausset was going for, he didn’t pull it off:
There is a genre of profile journalism that lets the subject hang themselves by their own words. But sometimes the words are not obviously inaccurate enough to everyone that it’s dangerous to just let them stand by themselves. This story is a total victory for an actual Nazi.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 25, 2017
Others found dark humor in the situation:
Figures that the first New York Times article ever showing sympathy to a millennial would be about a Nazi.
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) November 26, 2017
Perfect parody of the NYT Nazi profile. https://t.co/J9gaL6Otmg pic.twitter.com/kGwUUOCDVb
— Emily Nussbaum (@emilynussbaum) November 26, 2017
Contact Aiden Pink at pink@forward.com or on Twitter, @aidenpink
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