A Journalist's Approach to Hate Speech

Joe Weiner
jw441915@ohio.edu

Hate Speech on The Rise

The advancement of technology has made it easy for people from around the world to share their ideas and opinions through social media. These internet pathways of communication have many advantages like timeliness or mass outreach. Which means that harmful ideas of hatred can spread like wildfire on these platforms. Hate speech has become a major issue in society and in journalism following the 2016 election.

ProPublica did some research into hate crimes and how they are handled following the 2016 election and the results are telling. The research found that almost half of the victims of hate crimes never report the crime. They also mention a rise in hearing the phrase “go back to your country.”

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How it spreads

Platforms like Twitter and Instagram have allowed us to connect to our friends and strangers on the internet more than ever. These platforms also allow for the rapid spread of hate. The New York Times found eleven thousand posts with the hashtag #jewsdid9/11. These websites have all made different pledges as to how they will stop the spread of hate speech. They all plan to use artificial intelligence to vet posts the platforms. Youtube said specifically that they are adding over 10,000 employees just to review content posted to the site.

How to Cover Hate Speech

The rise of hate speech in our discourse means the rise of news stories involving hate speech. How can a journalist tactfully cover a story regarding hate speech? There are a few hints that Poynter gives us. One way is to be precise in your reporting by not using far-reaching labels in your coverage. Specifically point out who the group is and what they were doing. The reporter must also be precise in the language they use to describe events like protests or riots. Another thing that journalists can do when it comes to covering hate speech is give full context of video or images. The world we live in is very reactionary. It’s too easy for someone to see a photo that impacts them emotionally and share it. It’s important for these heavy images to have the proper context so that the truth can come out. You have to avoid propping up certain groups. The KKK would love to be legitimized through your coverage of them. They want a picture with their flag portrayed front and center of your newspaper. One final thing you can do combat hate speech through your reporting is avoiding shorthand. We need to be extremely precise in reporting of these occurrences. It’s pertinent to explain each detail in stories involving hate speech. The reporter can never assume that the audience knows what they do. Like its important to note how Charlottesville started. The violent and scary protest that left a couple people dead and many others scared started because a confederate statue was being removed. A detail like that can give an entire other layer of context to an already hard to digest story.