The New York Times is being sued by Peter Brimelow over a Jan. 15 article that offered a chronology of racist and inflammatory comments by Rep. Steve King. Peter Brimelow, an anti-immigration activist who hosts a website that has published the writings of white supremacists, is suing The New York Times for $5 million for labeling him an “open white nationalist” in an article last year. The characterization of Brimelow that triggered the libel lawsuit appeared in a Jan. 15, 2019 article by Times political reporter Trip Gabriel that offered a chronology of racist and inflammatory comments by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa). The story mentioned Brimelow in passing while noting that the two men appeared on a panel together at the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference. The suit says that after Brimelow complained about the description of him, the Times performed a “stealth edit” on the online version of the story, removing the word “open” but still branding him as a white nationalist. Brimelow rejects that label, preferring to be called a “civic nationalist.” (…) Brimelow’s court complaint also contends that the Times aggravated the impact of its initial statement by adding a link to what he calls a “smear piece” in which the Southern Poverty Law Center described him as a “white nationalist” and suggested he harbors white supremacist views. The Alabama-based watchdog group is not named as a defendant in the suit, but much of Brimelow’s complaint is devoted to complaints — common in conservative circles — that the center’s research is unreliable, politically biased and a thinly disguised fundraising ploy. Brimelow, a British-born naturalized U.S. citizen who lives in Connecticut, runs the anti-immigration website VDare.com and formerly worked as an editor for Forbes magazine and a columnist for National Review. He acknowledged in his letter to the Times that his VDare website published articles written by “those who aim to defend the interests of whites,” but he said the site has carried a wide range of authors who favor immigration restrictions.

via politico: Anti-immigration author sues NYT over ‘white nationalist’ label

Categories: Rechtsextremismus