Raging Amazon Fires Are a Potent Symbol of Our Indifference to Environmental Disorder
How Online Hate Groups Survive ; How Journalists Covered Mussolini and Hitler ; and More Picks
Federal Agencies Thought Stories From a White Nationalist Site Were Necessary Reading for Employees (Reader Pat)
The author writes, “A BuzzFeed News investigation found that an arm of the Justice Department and the Department of Labor have shared stories from VDare, a white nationalist publication, with federal employees on multiple occasions over the last two years.”
Tracking Online Hate Groups Reveals Why They’re Resilient to Bans (Mili)
The author writes, “The networks formed by hate group members … will migrate from network to network, keeping and sometimes expanding their connections in the process.”
Athens Police Poised to Evict Refugees From Squatted Housing Projects (Chris)
From the Guardian: “A promise to ‘restore law and order’ was one of the campaign themes that swept the right-wing party to power. Swiftly making good on this, on 8 August plans to evict all 23 refugee and anarchist squats in Exarcheia were announced. If carried out, by the end of the month they will have put an end to Athens’ experiment with autonomous urban governance and its grassroots refugee solidarity network, which currently houses over 1,000 people.”
GateHouse’s Takeover of Gannett: Bad News for Journalism and the Planet (Russ)
The author writes, “This sort of consolidation means fewer resources for reporting, usually fewer reporters, and less informed attention to local affairs. As for the fossil fuel connection, it’s maybe not so much what it means for USA Today as for the 666 other publications involved nationwide.”
How Journalists Covered Mussolini and Hitler (Reader Jim)
From the Smithsonian: “How to cover the rise of a political leader who’s left a paper trail of anti-constitutionalism, racism and the encouragement of violence? Does the press take the position that its subject acts outside the norms of society? Or does it take the position that someone who wins a fair election is by definition ‘normal,’ because his leadership reflects the will of the people? These are the questions that confronted the U.S. press after the ascendance of fascist leaders in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.”
