On Friday both the Irish Times and the Irish Independent published stories which claimed the far right was growing in Ireland, based on a ‘report’ by a group called the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE). The IT’s report was titled “Growth of far-right in Ireland set to continue according to US monitoring group,” and the Indo’s was titled “Report shows far-right movement is on the rise in Ireland.”
The ‘report,’ which is being used to say “far-right hate and extremist groups” are growing in Ireland and that named groups, and individuals, are part of that movement, consists entirely of a single webpage. That webpage has less than 400 words of an introduction and a short, heavily biased, bio of each organisation. Nowhere is there any evidence presented that the far-right is growing in Ireland, it is simply an assertion being made by an organisation who has no presence in Ireland and whose staff do not appear to be based in this country. I suppose one could argue that that meets a particularly mechanistic definition of what a report is, a series of written sentences on a common topic, but that is so fundamentally a silly thing to say that we’re just going to walk straight through that argument.
The ‘report’ both of those articles were based on contained the details of 12 groups which the GPAHE say are “far-right hate and extremist groups.” Both the IT and the Indo were wise enough to not mention any of the groups by name in their reporting, although I’m not sure how effective a defence that’s going to be given that my immediate reaction, when I read the story in the IT, was to go ‘I wonder who’s on that list?’ and use the information provided by the IT to find the list directly. On a sidenote the Irish Times were kind enough to inform readers that the two co-founders of GPAHE were previously involved with the Southern Poverty Law Centre – a line which undoubtedly made them seem more credible to those members of the public who have heard of the SPLC, and are vaguely aware that it was/is considered very reputable, but haven’t paid enough attention to know the SPLC has decayed into a hollowed out, partisan, shell of what it once was.
Amusingly enough one of the groups listed in the ‘report’ is said to exist “primarily as an online network…and experts estimate less than 10 active members.” They have, the webpage claims, “engaged in real world activity such as posting their stickers.”
We don’t need to go into detail about exactly what either the IT or the Indo printed, other than to say that I would expect both the of these newspapers will be receiving some very strongly worded legal letters rather soon, and that it is probably generally wise to not include quotes in your articles which could be viewed as saying named groups aim to inspire terrorism and mass killings. Rather a jump up in activity from posting stickers. I should point out at this point that the Indo have memory holed the article they put up, so those letters may have beaten me to writing this article.
Methodologically…well there is no methodology detailed on this webpage, there’s just a classification given to each group and a series of links embedded into the body of the website. What is interesting, and what should have set off the mother of all alarms in both the IT and Indo, is how the GPAHE defines far-right hate and extremist groups.
The GPAHE say that these groups “drive hate-motivated incidents, hate crimes, and other acts of online and offline violence, including mass terrorist attacks in multiple countries.” Groups listed by the GPAHE, “have generally embraced beliefs and activities that demean, harass, and inspire violence against people based on their identity traits.”
In a very helpful FAQ section GPAHE ask “Must a group be violent to be added to GPAHE’s country reports?” They answer, “Though GPAHE focuses on far-right extremism because of its close connection to terrorism and hate crimes, we monitor a much broader set of organizations and movements that advocate for far-right extremist ideas beyond those that are connected directly to violence and rights-restricting policies. This is because a movement or organization’s ideas, propaganda, and actions may still be violence-inspiring.” They then go on to list an array of mass killings and terrorist attacks before stating that “Limiting our research to only violent far-right groups would fail to capture the important role that propaganda and organizing plays from groups without an obvious track record of mass violence.” So no, you don’t have to be violent to be on the list, but only because you can non-violently inspire violence.
Now I’m not one to tell someone else how to do their job, but if one of Gript’s reporters came to me and asked me if they could report on a single webpage some random foreigner had put up which said that named Irish groups, and individuals, were either dedicated to committed acts of terrorism and violence against their political or ideological opponents, or dedicated to inspiring others to kill their political or ideological opponents, I feel I would perhaps start my response by very gently asking that reporter if they had gone totally insane.
Similarly if I was handling the social media of the National Women’s Council of Ireland I would probably have recommended they not directly link to the report on their social media alongside a statement that “the far right is on the rise in Ireland.” Partially due to the legal risk and partially due to an awareness that saying extremism was a rising force in Irish politics was just asking people to post screenshots of the letter the NWCI signed last year calling for ‘legitimate political representation’ to be stripped from women they disagreed with. And no, that is not a joke. They did do that.
Ultimately what has happened here is that both the IT and the Indo have shown they are willing to publish articles which linked named groups, and named individuals, to violence of the most grotesque sort based entirely on unsupported statements, which themselves seem to be based on material provided by an anonymous group. Setting aside the legal issues here, and those are many, the fact that two major outlets were willing to do that, without offering those named by the GPAHE a chance to comment or defend their good names, does not bode well for the general standard of reporting they hold themselves to.
One interesting omission from the reporting of both the IT and the Indo is that the ‘report’ contains the following thanks at the bottom “We would like to thank Ireland’s Far Right Observatory for providing input and research for this country report.” The FRO is an anonymous collection of left, and far-left, agitators, activists, academics, etc, who we’ve previously revealed are currently enjoying a very healthy level of state funding. Their membership appears fluid, with certain people being keen to stress they are ‘associated’ with the group rather than being members.
The omission is particularly interesting given that the FRO have healthy relationships, either ideological or social, with a decent array of Irish journalists. They are not without their friends in the media, and they’re not without friends in both the IT and the Indo.
GPAHE’s website states, as a response to the question “Where does GPAHE get its information?” that, “because GPAHE is an American-based organization working in many other countries, our research is vetted by country experts and those with appropriate cultural context and language skills.” Which does rather raise the question of how much of what is on that page is the work of the GPAHE and how much of it is the work of the FRO. I can’t rightfully say, but I can say that a number of the talking points contained in the ‘report’ match rather neatly with talking points I’ve seen used by individuals who I know are closely associated with the FRO.
Given the currently rather high likelihood that this will lead to legal action, it will be rather interesting to see if the FRO, either collectively or individually, get dragged into any legal battle which may arise. Whilst their anonymity has given the ‘associates’ of the FRO a certain ability to spit venom at their political opponents, both left and right, from the shadows, the group last year joined with Uplift, who serve as their ‘legal entity,’ in order to secure funding from Rethink Ireland, and the State. An anonymous collective could dissolve or become unreachable if it became known someone was seeking to serve them with legal papers, Uplift cannot.