National Public Radio is scrambling to do damage control this week after it promoted the views of a dangerously ignorant pro-looting activist who is also a gigantic anti-Semite.
In late August, NPR’s Code Switch department published an interview with Vicky Osterweil, author of In Defense of Looting. In the interview, Osterweil was given free rein to spout several major falsehoods, drawing little to no pushback from NPR.
“This Q&A with a provocative author did not serve NPR’s audience,” the newsgroup’s public editor, Kelly McBride, said Thursday. “On top of being wrong about recent events, the author’s characterization of the Civil Rights Movement is a distortion and oversimplification.”
She adds, “In the interview, the author made several statements in support of her hypothesis that could be easily fact-checked.”
And, boy, what an interview it was.
“[Looting] gets people what they need for free immediately,” Osterweil told NPR, “which means that they are capable of living and reproducing their lives without having to rely on jobs or a wage — which, during COVID times, is widely unreliable or, particularly in these communities, is often not available, or it comes at great risk.”
The author, whose first defense of looting came amid the Ferguson, Missouri, riots, added, “That’s looting’s most basic tactical power as a political mode of action.”
Osterweil went on to recite a number of fictions.
“In terms of potential crimes that people can commit against the state, [looting is] basically nonviolent. You’re mass shoplifting,” the activist said. “Most stores are insured; it’s just hurting insurance companies on some level. It’s just money. It’s just property. It’s not actually hurting any people.”
Osterweil continues, asserting that looters are careful not to target local businesses. This is also false. The author also claims that the leaders of the civil rights movement adopted the tactic of nonviolence only to appease northern white people. We are just making up stuff now.
Then there is the really nutty stuff, including when Osterweil says, “It’s actually a Republican myth that has, over the last 20 years, really crawled into even leftist discourse: that the small-business owner must be respected, that the small-business owner creates jobs and is part of the community. But that’s actually a right-wing myth.”
Throughout the entire exchange, Osterweil’s free-wheeling, fact-free declarations met basically no challenge from NPR, which published the full transcript of the interview on Aug. 27.
As if this were not bad enough for the publicly funded news organization, journalists who read Osterweil’s book later shared some of its more insane passages on social media, including one where the author writes in reference to the 1992 Los Angeles riots [emphasis added]:
Is that so? “Jews were not targeted because they were Jewish. They were targeted because they have all the money,” is not quite the defense of anti-Semitic violence that Osterweil apparently thinks it is. Or maybe it is exactly the defense the author thinks it is, which then justifies my referring earlier to the pro-looting activist as a gigantic anti-Semite.
Did anyone at NPR read the book, which includes a chapter titled “All Cops Are Bastards”? Did no one at NPR question the wisdom of elevating an activist whose Twitter handle even bears the acronym for “All Cops Are Bastards”? Did it not occur to anyone that, instead of elevating a provocative but worthwhile voice, they were actually amplifying an ignorant bigot with no basic understanding of history or community?
Apparently not, which is why NPR is in the embarrassing position this week of having to issue mea culpas for what was always an extremely avoidable fiasco.
“This piece was fact-checked, but we should have done more,” Code Switch editor Steve Drummond said of the interview, which has been updated to correct Osterweil’s many false assertions.
But even with the corrections, NPR’s McBride explained Thursday, “this failure to challenge this author’s statements is harmful on two levels. Publishing false information leaves the audience misinformed. On top of that, news consumers are watching closely to see who is challenged and who isn’t.”
She adds, “In this case a book author with a radical point of view far to the left was allowed to spread false information. Casual observers might conclude that NPR is more interested in fact-checking conservative viewpoints than liberal viewpoints. Or possibly, that bias on the part of NPR staff interferes with their judgment when spotting suspect information.”
Due diligence. What is it?
