I've been holding my fire and contemplating the NYT Nazi-in-the-Heartland story before commenting. But here goes.
First, I generally agree with critiques that the story is woefully inadequate in its presentation and contextualizing of the issue.
That said, it's extremely difficult to do this kind of story properly, and it's up to editors to make sure writers are equipped for them.
There are two main criticisms of the story -- 1) That it normalizes white supremacy and 2) that it humanizes a white supremacist.
On the first, the story should have been (and tried to be) *about* the normalization of overt ideological white supremacy, rather than being an example of it.
The growing normalization of ideological white supremacy is one of the biggest stories of our historical moment, but that requires a lot more work and breadth of focus than this story offered.
On humanizing: It is an inconvenient truth that extremists are ordinary human beings. While not news, this requires some philosophical grappling.
I think the story fell short here too, reading more like a slightly sad avocado toast feature, but I don't object to humanizing reporting per se.
Treating extremists as if they're aliens from outer space obscures the human roots of the problem.
Anyway, we can do better, and as many have noted, others have, including @TheAtlantic.
But reporters are going to be struggling with such stories for some time to come. I think the burden is on editors to shape the coverage. /fin
