Journalistic terrorism

Romanticizing murderers is a form of journalistic terrorism.

Goodloe Sutton, the publisher of the Democrat-Reporter newspaper in Linden, Alabama, penned an editorial two weeks ago which called for the return of the “Ku Klux Klan to night ride again” against “Democrats [who] are plotting to raise taxes in America.”

His subsequent defense that the KKK was not “a violent organization” as “they didn’t kill but a few people” and that “the Klan wasn’t violent until they needed to be” not only turns one’s stomach; his comments could lead to terrible barbarism.

While the editors of The Louisiana Weekly have always defended freedom of the press, we are reminded of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ admonition that one cannot ‘yell Fire’ in a crowded theatre and call it free speech.

Sutton’s incitement to domestic terrorism certainly qualifies. This is not journalism. This is violence in ink. It is illegal to threaten the life of the President, and urging the murders of the members of the opposition party equally should not be an excusable act.

Sutton wrote that he wanted the KKK to “clean out D.C.” by “lynching.”

“If we could get the Klan to go up there and clean out D.C., we’d all been better off,” Sutton editorialized. When asked to specify what he meant by “clean out D.C.,” Sutton specifically brought up lynching. “We’ll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them,” Sutton said.

It’s hard to confuse such admonitions. Domestic terrorists like Timothy McVeigh took such hate speech and blew up government buildings as a result. Sutton’s words constitute a hate crime in the making. His newspaper deserves to be boycotted until he never graces either its pages or its offices ever again.

This article originally published in the February 25, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.