The New York Times, Aftenposten, Robert Spencer, Richard Spencer, and journalistic standards in 2019

The New York Times and Norway’s Aftenposten are both respected pillars of “journalism,” but neither would know the facts if they came up to them and yelled “Extry! Extry! Read all about it!” Just ask former U.S. President Robert Nixon and the celebrated atheist Robert Dawkins.

Oh wait, did I get those names wrong? Don’t ask Aftenposten or the Times. They certainly won’t know. The ignorant, ill-informed and inattentive frequently confuse me with the white supremacist neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, but for major establishment media sources to do it bespeaks a carelessness with the facts that doesn’t speak well of their other coverage.

“Ti ting du må vite for å forstå Sverige,” by Bjarne Riiser Gundersen, Aftenposten, August 9, 2019:

Fascisten Robert Spencer, som grunnla alt-right-bevegelsen i USA, beskriver i dag Sverige som «mest alt-right i Europa» og samarbeider tett med svenske forbundsfeller. Dette bakteppet er nødvendig for å forstå svensk debattkultur på 2000-tallet.

That is: “Ten things you need to know to understand Sweden”:

Fascist Robert Spencer, who founded the Alt-Right movement in the United States, today describes Sweden as “the most alt-right state in Europe” and works closely with Swedish allies. This background is necessary to understand the culture of the Swedish debate in the 2000s.

I did not found the alt-right movement (and have nothing to do with it), I’m not a fascist, and I never said Sweden was “the most alt-right state in Europe.” The bumbling Bjarne Riiser Gundersen has mixed me up with the white supremacist neo-Nazi Richard Spencer.

Meanwhile, there is this: “The global machine behind the rise of far-right nationalism,” by Jo Becker, New York Times, August 10, 2019:

Leaked video showed two Sweden Democrat MPs and the party’s candidate for attorney general hurling racist slurs at a comedian of Kurdish descent, then threatening a drunken witness with iron pipes. Under Akesson and Karlsson, the party has hosted American white nationalist Richard Spencer.

Searching around, I found several articles in which Richard Spencer and the Sweden Democrats are both discussed, but none of them say Richard Spencer ever spoke for the Sweden Democrats. However, around 2010 or 2011 I spoke for them in Stockholm, not about “white nationalism,” to which I do not adhere, but about the threat of jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women and others.

So far both the New York Times and Aftenposten have ignored requests for a correction. Journalism, they call it.

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