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‘Normalizing Fascists,’ or ‘How Journalists Covered the Rise of Mussolini and Hitler’
From John Broich in The Conversation (via Smithsonian Magazine[1]):
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.
First published in December 2016. Our biggest newspapers have learned nothing since, and—dare I say—are even worse now.
By the later 1930s, most U.S. journalists realized their mistake in underestimating Hitler or failing to imagine just how bad things could get.
When will today’s journalists come to the same realization about Trump?
What will historians write about today’s newspapers one hundred years hence?
Smithsonian went with an accurate-yet-anodyne “How Journalists Covered the Rise of Mussolini and Hitler” instead of the original’s more provocative “Normalizing fascists.” I think they complement each other. ↩︎