The ethics of reporting on radical nationalist groups in Sweden

Abstract: Radical nationalist groups are growing in Sweden as well as in the rest of the world due to contemporary political, cultural and social rationale, where the internet is used as a catalyzer and tool to organize and spread their ideologies. Simultaneously, the structures and the system that hold journalism seem to be altering at a similar speed. The journalistic reporting on radical nationalist groups has, for this reason, become increasingly difficult. The alt-right, a radical nationalist group in the US expanded much because of the oxygen that American journalists added in an attempt to raise awareness of the danger or the highly problematic opinions that these groups sometimes stand for (Faris et.al 2018). A similar trend in Sweden is not yet visible but the lack of an ethical code of conduct when reporting on radical nationalist groups speaks for unpreparedness. This study aims to understand the ethical approach of Swedish journalists when reporting on radical nationalist groups through the interviews of 8 journalists. ¨´The theoretical approach is based on the structures that affect ethical decision-making along the hierarchy of influence model, by Shoemaker and Reese (1996) as well as journalists’ positioning of ideology and relativism, an ethical concept developed by Plaisance (2005). Based on the interview data collected for this study, some of the journalists in Sweden claim to be consequence neutral, thus it can be assumed that the responsibility of providing accumulated attention to radical nationalist groups which contribute to their expansion is not taken by many journalists. The focus of the interviewed Swedish journalists is rather on up front nazis than the dubious groups spreading online, with some exceptions, which could help explain the more carefree approach. However, the challenges of similar groups’ potential spreading in the near future is an important reason to address ethical approaches on how to best report on radical nationalist groups promptly.