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Op-Ed: Little outcry over Antifa’s
equal-opportunity beatdowns of journalists left and right
[The Center Square] Mark Hemingway |
RealClearInvestigations
Freelance photojournalist
Maranie Staab believes her camera can be a force for truth and social
justice. The work of a “conflict photographer” often requires physical
courage in places she has reported from, such as Africa and the Middle
East. It certainly did so on Aug. 22, while Staab was covering
demonstrations in Portland, Oregon. |
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 Staab, a 2020 reporting fellow for the liberal Pulitzer Center,
was assaulted by the left-wing group antifa, and the assault was filmed and
distributed online, resulting in widespread condemnation. Yet despite the
alarming increase in such attacks, reporters who cover antifa express
frustration that the condemnation of the attack on Staab was an aberration. More
often than not, antifa’s attacks on the press have gone ignored.
No reporter is better known for covering antifa than Andy Ngo, author of the
best-selling book “Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy.”
Ngo, the son of Vietnamese immigrants, started reporting on protest violence for
the Portland State Vanguard, Portland State University‘s student newspaper, in
2016.
With left-wing violence largely ignored by legacy news organizations, Ngo found
there was a market for coverage of Portland’s growing problem with street
violence – notably by antifa, a largely decentralized, avowedly anti-fascist and
anti-racist political movement without an identifiable leader or spokesperson
that is concentrated in the Pacific Northwest.
Soon Ngo was in the streets working as a freelance reporter while his Twitter
feed became a nationally known clearinghouse for information related to antifa –
everything from videos of violence and vandalism to the ensuing mugshots and
charging documents.
In June 2019, Ngo was jumped by a crowd of antifa protesters while reporting on
a demonstration in the city. They kicked him in the groin, repeatedly punched
him in the head while wearing tactical gloves with fiberglass-reinforced
knuckles, and pelted him with hard objects. Ngo ended up in the hospital with a
brain hemorrhage.
Ngo says he has been attacked four times and no longer lives in Portland out of
concern for his safety, but antifa regularly make menacing appearances at his
aging mother’s house in the city. Graffiti has appeared in Portland saying,
“Kill Andy Ngo.” and “Andy Ngo 187” – 187 being a police code denoting murder.
“It’s just been this constant incitement to kill me,” he says. “That’s why I
left at the end of last year,” Ngo said.
Ngo and other journalists complain that media organizations have not done enough
to defend them. Following the attack on Staab, the Oregon chapter of the Society
of Professional Journalists issued a statement noting that “assaulting
journalists runs counter to the ideals of our democracy.” But RCI could find
only one other statement from the society’s Oregon chapter condemning an attack
by left-wing protesters. The organization did not respond to RCI’s request for
other examples of its condemnation of attacks on other reporters.
[to top of second column] |
Ngo isn’t alone in thinking that these attacks on the press are being
downplayed. So does Nancy Rommelmann, who as a journalist has written for the
New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Working as a freelancer, she filed
several reports on antifa and street violence in Portland for the libertarian
magazine Reason.
She was attacked in the streets, she says, and threatened online, with her photo
publicly posted. Rommelmann believes the traditional media are ignoring the
street violence for political reasons – they don’t want antifa’s extremism to be
seen as discrediting to liberal causes. “I can tell you that 100% of the people
that have attacked and continue to attack me, they’re all on the left – all of
them. And I consider myself a liberal,” Rommelmann said.
Even as outlets including the Guardian and the Washington Post published
articles dismissing left-wing violence – including a Post fact-check piece last
summer declaring, “Who caused the violence at protests? It wasn’t antifa” –
others attacked the reporters trying to cover the protests.
Critics say that Ngo should not be treated as a legitimate journalist and allege
that he has reported misleading or non-objective information. An article in the
Columbia Journalism Review referred to him as a “discredited provocateur.” Ngo
does much of his reporting on Twitter and social media, in part due to a lack of
interest in antifa from the broader media.
Ngo’s reporting makes clear that he’s critical of antifa. Moreover, if making
the occasional error or having a point of view is disqualifying for a
journalist, the New York Times and Washington Post – and most reporters and
editors in the country – would have their press credentials revoked. The
criticism of Ngo is particularly galling when one considers that his main point
of view is that “political violence is wrong.”
He remains undeterred. In June, when a reporter from the left-leaning sports
site Deadspin was among those demanding Twitter stop calling Ngo a journalist,
he responded. “My detractors do this because they want to take away the one
thing that all decent people agree on: press freedom is sacred,” Ngo wrote. “Who
the far-left defines as ‘press’ are those who write what they approve of. Anyone
else is a ‘provocateur’ deserving of intimidation and violence.”
This article was adapted from a RealClearInvestigations article published
September 23. |
