The media and the Ku Klux Klan: a debate that began in the 1920s

In the 1920s, the membership of the Ku Klux Klan exploded nationwide, thanks in part to its coverage in the news media. One newspaper exposé is estimated to have helped the Klan gain hundreds of thousands of members.

Dr Felix Harcourt, a professor of history at Austin College and the author of Ku Klux Kulture, breaks down what he calls the “mutually beneficial” relationship between the Klan and the press – and explains how much the debate that raged over coverage of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s mirrors today’s arguments.

In 1921, the New York World ran a three-week front page exposé of the Klan: daily denunciations of its ideology, of its activities, of its hooded secrecy, and its propensity to violence. They managed to get virtually every major New York representative on record in opposition to the Klan. They ultimately spark a congressional hearing into the Klan’s growing power. By some estimates it boosts the World’s circulation by over 100,000 readers. 


Source : theguardian