Zach D. Robert – “A woefully incomplete guide to the people, books and sites that you should be following to keep ahead of the rise of white extremists. “Everytime there is another white extremist-related incident, or arrest I am reminded that the major news publications and cable networks are out of their depth. CNN just weeks ago had white nationalist Richard Spencer on to discuss President Trump’s racist and anti-semetic Twitter tirade. They also adamantly defended right-wing grifter Andy Ngo as a journalist after he was given a milkshake in the face (he is not a journalist, nor is he worth defending). MSNBC spread the lie that Portland antifascists were planning to infiltrate the far right side of protests and purposely start fights to make the Proud Boys look bad. Throughout this none of the networks covered the recent Proud Boys trials, and even the NY Times coverage of it refused to recognize the importance of the freelance journalists (Sandi Bachom and Shay Horse) that were on the ground the night that the attacks occurred.  That’s why I decided to create this piece. It’s genuinely difficult to follow the hundreds of so-called ‘isolated incidents’ of white extremist attacks and threats, as the mainstream media is not doing its job. There are, of course, exceptions – PBS has been doing an excellent job with it’s ProPublica associated documentaries, MSNBC is doing a service with it’s Breaking Hate series and the NY Times’ recent piece on YouTube’s algorithm problems tried really hard.

This is why I think it’s incredibly important for us to turn our attention to those that are doing it right. People like Christopher Mathias at Huffington Post or A.C. Thompson at ProPublica. There are a lot of people doing excellent work documenting the rise of white supremacy and fascism in research, journalism and activism. When I pitched this piece to my editors at NationofChange, I was thinking a quick 700-word piece that I could pretty much write off the top of my head. That was not to be. I asked twitter about who they follow for info about anti-hate anti-fascist news and activism and my shortlist was, shall we say enlargened. So with the urging of NationofChange, I decided to do something a little bit more comprehensive…”