Frank Taaffe is a white supremacist and proud of it. He is also a go-to-guy for TV producers when the subject is the infamous George Zimmerman and/or Michael Dunn. He has been a regular on Headline News (HLN) for years and has appeared dozens of times on major media outlets. For a time last year Taaffe hosted a white supremacist podcast called Stand Your Ground, and last October he went on a rant about Oprah Winfrey in which he repeatedly called her a n***.
And yet, he is still featured in mainstream media as a guest expert on Zimmerman and Dunn. He was interviewed by Nancy Grace on HLN, for example, just last week. His white supremacist views are never disclosed by the media outlets that give him a platform.
My colleague Rachel Tabachnick has exposed Taaffe's white supremacist views and involvements in an important story at Eyes Right, the blog of Political Research Associates, and has expanded on her story at Talk to Action.
She is building on the good work of Media Matters and journalist Mariah Blake who has written about Taaffe repeatedly at Mother Jones. Media Matters reported in 2013 that Taaffe has appeared on ABC News, CNN, NBC News, Fox News, CBS News, MSNBC, and CNN-spinoff Headline News Network -- including “more than 60 separate prime time appearances on HLN alone” and interviews with Piers Morgan and Anderson Cooper on CNN.
Tabachnick wrote:
Taaffe (who is also a neighbor and close friend of Zimmerman) has established himself as the most visible and vocal supporter of both George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn in cable news network coverage of the trials. Despite repeated revelations of Taaffe’s white supremacy activities, he continues to appear as a regular guest analyst on CNN’s HLN shows, including Nancy Grace’s coverage just this past week. His success in mainstreaming extremism should be a warning call.
Taaffe’s white supremacist “credentials” are extensive. Beginning in August of 2013, Taaffe hosted a weekly show on The White Voice Network, which describes itself as “media, news, and information for White people against White genocide.” Taaffe’s program is aptly named “Standing our Ground,” and is co-hosted with the author of the “Save White People Handbook,” Joe Adams. The Network’s guest list has included Tom Metzger, who founded White Aryan Resistance and who was praised by Joe Adams for his work against “niggers” and Jews.
Hosts and guests on The White Voice believe they must be proactive in defending themselves against the white genocide efforts of “niggers and mud people,” as Joe Adams describes in Episode 76. In that same episode, guest Tom Metzger warns that the “nonwhites are getting more brave and bold all the time.” Frank Taaffe’s remarks have been similarly offensive, as evidenced by this short clip from Episode 8 of “Standing Our Ground,” which has since been scrubbed from the White Voice Network’s website.
At
Talk to Action she
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I've also posted a slightly longer version of this raw exchange below in order to document the fact that major network and cable news programs have helped to provide a media platform to a white supremacist. In the discussion of the Stand Your Ground laws of Florida and other states, it is imperative that we acknowledge the role of the mainstreaming of racist ideology in media.
Hear excerpts from the October 3, 2013 podcast of Taaffe's show on the White Voice Network in which he discusses Oprah.