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It's nearly election day. Here's a thread with my thoughts for any journalists who end up covering activity from the far right over the next few days and beyond. 1/
Think about the consequences of a story before you publish it. Could it discourage people from voting? Could it lead people to think the outcome of the election has been decided even if it hasn't? Or worse, could it increase the chance of violence? 2/
If your story is about something that isn't widely known, think about the relative benefits and harms of increasing awareness. Many of us think it's important to highlight dangerous, threatening behavior, but extremists thrive off that coverage! 3/
For more on that, check out @wphillips49's Oxygen of Amplification ( https://datasociety.net/library/oxygen-of-amplification/) and @BostonJoan and @zephoria's argument in favor of journalistic discretion ( https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/01/extremist-ideas-media-coverage-kkk) 4/
One thing that @wphillips49 points out is that some extremists recognize the strategic value for them and their ideas to have mainstream media cover them -- even if media paints them as bad actors! 5/
Oath Keepers has made hay for years by telling its audience that mainstream media isn't fair to them, that their articles are full of lies and slander. That means that articles the group describes as "hit jobs" can be useful for the group! 6/
One consequence of the group's message about media coverage: OK pushes its audience to places like InfoWars and Gateway Pundit as alleged sources for real information (bonkers as that might seem to most of us) 7/
Not putting anybody on blast. I've had some convos with journalists recently who are being really thoughtful about this stuff and some convos with journalists who aren't. Please, please be thoughtful if you're covering this stuff.
