NEW ORLEANS—When Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk goes to speak on campus and attracts a large following, that’s not the story—the story is how the Right conspired to open the door to his “extremism,” according to journalists presenting at an investigative reporting conference.
David Armiak, research director at the Center for Media and Democracy, and Kyle Spencer, a former New York Times contributor and the CEO of the Pro-Democracy Information Lab, coached a room full of at least 60 reporters and editors on “Tracking Right-Wing Influencers and Movements” at the Investigative Reporters and Editors Conference in New Orleans on Friday. Robert Downen, a Texas Monthly senior writer, moderated the panel.
Armiak recounted seeing Kirk at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s library mall last fall. He saw Kirk “in the center of campus with frat bros all around him, you know, spewing anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ+ talking points” and campaigning for Donald Trump.
“I had never seen so many folks standing out, watching him in the past,” Armiak noted, mentioning that Kirk had previously been limited to a room “where it was more difficult for him to get exposure.”
“What’s the story?” Spencer asked. “The story is, how is he now next to the library?” She called this a “great opportunity” to write about “the right-wing network” passing bills “that will allow extremism to be normalized and to be more easily spread.”
Spencer pointed to nonprofits like the Goldwater Institute that publish draft legislation. In October 2017, the Wisconsin Board of Regents adopted a free speech policy echoing language used in a bill based on Goldwater Institute draft legislation.
Both Armiak and Spencer suggested the Kirk speech represented a good opportunity for reporters to expose the infrastructure of conservative policy, which they also branded “extremist.”
Armiak condemned a network that “brings together fossil fuel funders, Christian Right activists, pastors, some of these state policy network folks, litigation folks, people like Leonard Leo, Trump’s judge whisperer.” He claimed the members of this network “were deeply tied to the January 6th insurrection and are deeply tied to the manipulation of our democracy and efforts to subvert it now.”
Spencer emphasized that “when you’re covering somebody who is voicing views of the extreme Right, they have been sort of planted by a larger network.”
When it comes to covering the “far Right,” Spencer urged reporters to “avoid features that glamorize and glorify these people,” and to avoid “both-sides-ism”—the journalist’s practice of presenting a point and a counter-point in reporting.
“Do not ‘two-side’ stories,” she said. “Their fascism is not a side. Destroying people’s right to vote is not a side.”
Spencer also advised reporters not to merely use the names that conservative organizations adopt for themselves. She claimed they “use propagandist tools,” employing “words that we associate with democracy, with humanism” for groups that “are doing the exact opposite.”
She gave the example of the parental rights group Moms for Liberty. She called it “an organization that is heavily funded by non-moms, that wants to keep people from reading the books they want to read.”
“As a journalist, if you refer to them as ‘Moms for Liberty’ and you don’t put that in context, you’re lying to your readers,” Spencer said.
Downen, the moderator, said the Christian Right and business groups “who really want unfettered capitalism” work “in tandem together.” He urged reporters to “find the ideological underpinnings for these groups.” He gave the example of the Council for National Policy, a secretive organization that he said “was founded almost explicitly with a Christian Dominionist agenda … the idea being that Christians need to dominate every sector of society in order to bring about the apocalypse.”
Downen gave a “practical tip for reporting,” urging listeners to find people “two, three, four steps removed from somebody who has some really noxious ideologies or has been funding a bunch of other groups, too.” He said making these connections is “an important part of this reporting process.”
He also argued that most Americans don’t really support conservative ideas, and that conservatives favor “voter suppression” tactics in order to maintain power.
“A crucial part of the Christian nationalist movement, a lot of these movements, is convincing people that it’s not gerrymandering or low civic participation that is allowing them to sustain power, but rather that they represent some silent majority,” Downen said. “I think it’s really important to be pointing out that these are actually very unpopular ideas and the reason that they often are looking to institute them by subverting democratic processes is precisely because they know that they do not have popular support.”
Those on the Left often condemn voter ID laws as a form of “suppression,” preventing people from voting. Conservatives often respond by noting the persistence of voter fraud, and that most polls find Americans broadly favor voter ID laws, even in blue states like California.
Armiak also warned about the Convention of States, a conservative group that aims to hold a convention of the state legislatures to amend the U.S. Constitution under Article V.
“This is a massive threat,” Armiak said. He noted that “a lot of editors” would say, “Once they have the convention and they got to get 38 states to ratify it, that’s pretty difficult.”
The journalist said reporters should respond, “Yeah, but do you want them to get in the room?”
He urged reporters to ask, “Who are the extremists that are supporting it in your community?”
A member of the audience who said the Right wants to “tear government out by its roots” asked the panelists, “How do we, as journalists, convince editors and publishers to contextualize this on a higher level than what we’re doing now?” His question suggested that legacy media journalists are insufficiently negative in their coverage of the conservative movement.
Spencer did not challenge the question, but proceeded to give advice.
She said that “the end game of limited government … of destroying the safety net” is “something that you can really explain to people.”
“You should always be using examples that would be alarming to people,” Spencer added. She encouraged reporters to start “reporting on aspects of limited government that would be really scary to people, and that would be really alarming.”
Journalists often worry about reporting on truly extreme individuals, such as mass shooters, lest they reward people who are seeking negative attention. Spencer applied this concern to conservative activists, but she suggested reporters solve the problem by telling “a larger story about how dangerous these entities are.”
More than 1,600 reporters and editors attended the conference, which included panels on practical tips for investigative reporting. Other panels, however, focused on issues from a left-wing perspective, such as “Following the anti-trans federal actions,” and “Belonging under fire: In an era of backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.”