The New York Times once again is under fire from social media users, some of whom are even demanding the paper of record “stop normalizing Nazis,” after running an alarmingly positive and whitewashed profile of right wing extremist Gavin McInnes, calling him a mere “provocateur.”
McInnes, as many have recently learned, is the founder of the Proud Boys, which he calls a gang and the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a hate group.
In a chilling video that’s gone viral overnight, McInness is shown appearing to call on Trump supporters to “Choke a motherfucker. Choke a bitch. Choke a tranny. Get your fingers around the windpipe.”
The video also shows McInnes saying: “Can you call for violence generally? ‘Cause I am.”
And a lot more.
But that’s far different than how The New York Times’ Alan Feuer profiled him.
Feuer writes that McInnes is just, “a former Brooklyn hipster turned far-right provocateur.”
In fact, he makes McInnes sound like a nutty uncle – not a man who has described his organization, the Proud Boys, thusly: “We will kill you. That’s the Proud Boys in a nutshell.”
The Times opted for literary descriptives, instead of cold hard facts.
“With his egghead glasses, pocket-protector and heavy-drinking, angry-nerd aesthetic,” The Times wrote, “Mr. McInnes has in recent years set himself apart from the current crop of professionally outraged right-wing pundits, not only for being able to spout aggressive rhetoric, but also for being willing to get physical at times.”
(This is how Proud Boys gets physical.)
McInnes may have a web TV show but he is far from being a “pundit.”
“His obsessions seem to be more cultural than political. Mr. McInnes, a fiscal conservative and libertarian, calls himself a champion of Western values and reserves a burning ire for the political correctness of people on the left whom he describes as busybodies who have lost their sense of humor.”
This is, by the way, far from the first time the charge of “normalizing Nazis” has been made against The Times (and to be clear, we’re not calling McInnes a Nazi.)
Earlier this year the paper was forced to “unhire” a tech opinion editor almost immediately after it lauded itself for her hiring, once social media users revealed she had freely admitted to having friends who are neo-Nazis. (She also used words like “fag,” and “faggot,” and “nigger.”)
Last December, less than two weeks before Christmas, The Times ran a profile of a white supremacist that made him seem like the guy next door. In fact, The Times called him the “Nazi sympathizer next door.”
Here’s how the article began:
“Tony and Maria Hovater were married this fall. They registered at Target. On their list was a muffin pan, a four-drawer dresser and a pineapple slicer,” The Times’ Richard Fausset wrote.
But back to coverage of how The Times is promoting McInnes.
“In a wildly tone-deaf profile of Gavin McInnes this week, The New York Times went to great lengths to avoid calling the Proud Boys founder a racist, sexist, fascist gang leader, even though he could be accurately described as all of these things,” HuffPost reported.
Other media outlets were equally appalled.
“To the Mainstream Media: Stop Normalizing Fascists Like Gavin McInnes and the Proud Boys,” wrote Paste Magazine.
“This Fawning New York Times Profile of Violent Proud Boy Bigot Gavin McInnes Is Next-Level Complicity BS,” said The Mary Sue.
And the ever spunky Wonkette wrote: “New York Times Gives Fascist Republican Gavin McInnes A Sweet, Loving Tongue Bath.”
Social media users were even far less reserved, with some threatening to cancel their Times’ subscriptions, and many just plain furious: