How local news handled the racist fliers

When residents of an east Chico neighborhood woke up last Thursday morning (July 6) to discover that someone had left racist fliers on their lawns—vile rants that advocated the slaughter of Mexicans—they were understandably upset.

Several of them called the police. Others took copies of the flier to the local television stations and CN&R.

Our editors recognized it as the work of Greg Withrow, a “lone wolf” racist provocateur who lives alone outside Oroville. This newspaper has written extensively about him in recent years, and Withrow has distributed such fliers in Chico before.

Withrow is a problem for local journalists. We know he’s an attention-seeker of questioned mental stability who sprays his racist crud about to make himself feel important. He’ll do almost anything for publicity. Last year, for example, he had himself nailed to a homemade cross in front of the State Capitol to protest the U.S. government’s failure to close the Mexico border. Is he newsworthy, we journalists ask ourselves, or is he just using us?

The local reporters and editors who ran stories about the fliers took differing tacks. The Chico Enterprise-Record went small, with only a few inches of copy buried on page A-2 and headlined “Racist literature draws several complaints.” There was no photo. The combined KHSL/KNVN newscasts played it big, however, with reporter Jerry Olenyn providing gripping footage of angry neighbors combined with archival shots of Withrow, including his infamous stint on Oprah, when he was claiming to be a reformed neo-Nazi.

David Little, editor of the E-R, said he and two members of his staff, reporter Greg Welter and city editor Steve Schoonover, discussed beforehand how to handle the story.

“Our policy regarding Greg Withrow is to basically ignore the guy,” Little said. He noted that, when informed of Withrow’s plan to be crucified, the paper didn’t send a reporter to Sacramento. “It’s a twisted cause and we don’t want to support it,” Little said.

If it had happened in Chico, though, they “probably would have covered it,” Little acknowledged.

The E-R would have preferred to do nothing with the most recent incident, Little said, but the viciousness of Withrow’s message was impossible to ignore. Still, the paper went small with the story because “if it was a bigger deal, he’d have been arrested.”

“It’s not just Withrow,” Little said. “Anybody who does something just for publicity we try to ignore.”

The KHSL/KNVN crew also discussed beforehand how to handle the incident, said Scott Howard, the news director. Howard went so far as to pull up some archival footage of Withrow for Olenyn and anchor Kelli Saam, who are new to the area. In the end, they decided to give the story full treatment, mostly because the people in the neighborhood expected coverage, Howard said.

“We do ask ourselves whether to give this person publicity,” he explained. But what Withrow did was wrong, “and this neighborhood did not like having to deal with it, so we reported it.”

Historically, the issue has been whether to “quarantine” racist groups or “inoculate” society against them, Mark Potok, the media relations person at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said. SPLC is an Atlanta-based organization that monitors hate groups.

It’s true that publicizing these groups may help them attract members, Potok said, but “I think in the end the inoculating effect is much more important.” Besides, with so many different media out there, quarantining is simply impossible.

Potok is familiar with Withrow. “I think it’s fair to say he’s unhinged,” he said. “He’s a person who’s widely thought both inside and outside the racist world to be out of his mind. It’s important to let people know that.”