COMMENT
In 2016 I appeared on Triple J’s Hack Live with a white supremacist. I was part of a panel discussion on “what does it mean to be an Aussie Patriot?”. I thought that by participating I could make him look like an idiot. I was wrong. Arguing with people like that only lowers the collective intelligence of those watching. It gives the illusion that both of our views are worthy of debate. The only people who benefited from the Hack Live I was a part of were program host Tom Tilley and the white supremacist.
I recalled going off air and Tilley was beyond himself with excitement; he clearly thought he’d done a great job. I told him I was more concerned about getting rape threats from viewers. Similarly, the only people who benefited from the recent Four Corners interview were journalist Sarah Ferguson and former Trump Chief of Staff Steve Bannon.
The interview has since been heavily criticised, the crux of which is, people like Bannon should not be given a platform. By “people like” I mean people so close to the proximity of white supremacists in rhetoric and action, it is easy to confuse him for one.
In 2016 Bannon proudly declared the far-right media company he was the chairperson of, Breitbart, as “the platform for the alt-right.” The alt-right are a group of people who feel their white identity is under attack. Earlier this year Bannon spoke at the National Front conference in France. He told those people to wear being labelled as racist and xenophobic as a badge of honour.
Our desperate bid to attach ourselves to anyone with any kind of proximity to fame or in this case infamy puts us in proximity to mediocrity.
It’s not clear why he was interviewed in the first place; he hasn’t been relevant since being fired by Trump in August 2017. Since being fired by Trump, he has also since left Breitbart. Our desperate bid to attach ourselves to anyone with any kind of proximity to fame or in this case infamy puts us in proximity to mediocrity.
To understand why this interview was terrible is to understand the role of journalism. Journalism at its finest shines a spotlight on darkness and holds those in power to account. Australia is not short of journalists doing this sort of work. Journalists such as Amy McQuire, Melissa Davey, Allan Clarke and Four Corner’s own Caro Meldrum-Hanna have done incredible work to shine a light on Australia’s darkest corners.
Journalism at its most powerful can cause cultural shifts, transform industries, empower citizens and is the child telling the world the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes. This interview was none of that. This was not a Frost-Nixon moment.
This interview was a platform for extremism because there was little accountability and perhaps there couldn’t be
In what is otherwise a stale interview, the most telling and perhaps honest moment of the interview is when Bannon tells Ferguson, “They’ve given a bunch of dangerous marginal people a platform”, referring to the neo-Nazi far right. This ironically epitomises the interview. Bannon is an extremist who found his way, much like Trump, in the epicentre of power. These are people who have little regard for the even the Republican establishment. These are people of the fringes of conservativism.
This interview was a platform for extremism because there was little accountability and perhaps there couldn’t be. Ferguson, herself white, declared that although Bannon had been called racist, “there’s no evidence to suggest” he is that. Ferguson seemed more interested in the appearance of racism rather than the effects of racism.
Whether or not Bannon is called a racist, the policies effecting millions of people of colour and his legacy in power is materially racist. Interviews such as this which do not interrogate his position serve as a platform that legitimise these extremists’ views. The language choices such as the way she bandied around terms like “the blacks and the hispanics,” reinforce the way that these groups of people are already spoken about. They dehumanise and homogenise, and position the white as the objective authority.
This is a time when there are material impacts from white supremacy. There are politicians who are openly racist and xenophobic. Holding these people to account can’t look like vaguely concerned white people who see themselves as impartial, talking to other white people about people of colour like we don’t exist.
