Fox News on Saturday night edited an article to remove the “white nationalist” label from a white nationalist group holding an anti-vaccine rally in New York City.
The initial report from Fox News, detailing a rally led by white supremacist honcho Nick Fuentes, read: “Antifa members clash with White nationalists over COVID vaccine mandate outside NYC’s Gracie Mansion.”
A couple hours after the article’s publication, according to archived versions of the post, the headline was changed, and now refers to “antifa members” clashing with “anti-vaccine protesters.”
The body of the article was similarly edited to remove references to the rallying white nationalists. The Daily Beast first noted the change Sunday.
Fuentes, the leader of the “America First” or “Groyper” movement, has made no secret of his views.
He attended the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, writing on Facebook that day that “a tidal wave of white identity is coming,” and has said the segregated South “was better for them, it’s better for us.” He’s called himself a “white advocate.” The First Amendment, he said in 2017, “was not written for Muslims” or immigrants. Of the Holocaust, he’s said “I don’t buy it,” while facetiously discussing how long it would take for “15 ovens” to produce “6 million batches of cookies.”
“I’m getting really sick of world Jewry — that’s what it is! — running the show,” he said in another webcast.
He’s also been embraced, at times, by some politicians on the Republican Party’s far right, including Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar and Arizona State Sen. Wendy Rogers. Gosar attended a conference organized by Fuentes earlier this year, at which Fuentes called for the protection of America’s “white demographic core” and said the Capitol attack was “awesome.”
While the Fox News article initially began by referring to clashes between “Antifa protesters and a White nationalist group,” it was later edited to refer to the parties as “Antifa radicals and anti-vaccine protesters.”
The edited article also erased a paragraph quoting the Anti-Defamation League: “Like the alt right and other white supremacists, Groypers believe they are working to defend against demographic and cultural changes that are destroying the “true America”—a white, Christian nation,” the ADL’s website states.
The edited post keeps two mentions of America First, but only to describe members of the group saying “fuck Antifa,” and to paraphrase an unnamed spokesperson for the group: “An America First spokesperson told Fox News the group protested to voice opposition to vaccine mandates.”
After the original article was published, Fuentes criticized its wording. On his Telegram channel, he noted, “Fox News using ADL talking points about me and AF. Scum,” and posted pictures of the author. Later, after the article was edited to remove “white nationalist,” he posted “much better– thank you!”
Neither spokespeople for Fox News nor the article’s author, Adam Sabes, returned TPM’s Monday request for comment on the changes.
