Why Covering Hate is Important.

 Audrianna Wilde

aw455919@ohio.edu

audrianna.wilde@gmail.com

Today, more than ever before, journalists need to cover dome
stic terrorism and hate-driven crimes. In a time where social media is ever-present in our daily lives, therefore opening up increased opportunities for efficient and effective mass communication, hate speech has found its foothold and spread like wildfire. 

Social media grants people anonymity and hides people behind screens rather than having them interact face to face. According to a New York Times article, social media has emboldened people to cross lines on what they would typically say, provoking people and inciting anger, hate, and even violence towards them. The lack of in-person contact gives people a sense of security knowing that their post or comment, among thousands of others, will not generate an immediate face-to-face altercation, and might not even be recognized as hate speech and get taken down, or result in any consequences at all.

Additionally, social media allows for messages to be sent at lightning speed to audiences of great sizes with the simple click of a button. According to the same NYT article, social media companies have created, allowed, and enabled extremists to move their messages from the margins to the mainstream at velocities never seen before. 

Source: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/richard-spencer-trump-alt-right-white-nationalist/

So why don't journalists cover domestic terrorism like they do foreign? And why is it important that they do? Does covering hate speech and hate crimes not give a megaphone to the hate?

The news consistently gives coverage to foreign terrorist groups like ISIS, however, according to an article by the Columbia Journalism Review, a database of domestic terror incidents by The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute showed that between 2008 and 2016, far-right domestic terrorist attacks outnumbered Islamic terrorism in the United States by almost double, and were deadlier. 

White nationalists and the impacts of white supremacy run rampant in our country, so why are we not hearing about it? It is important that people know what is going on in the world around them. According to the SPJ code of ethics, it is crucial that journalists seek truth and report it, and ensure the context in which it is reported is not distorted. Journalists should be striving to represent and show the prevalence of white supremacy in America. They should be exposing its roots, where it is found, who is continuing to feed into this culture that continues to have a hold on our country, and what its impacts are on the people that they target. 

If newsrooms covered white supremacy in the same way that they covered foreign terrorism, it would not amplify the hatred, but instead people would understand the true magnitude of the problem and do something about it.