MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday highlighted "the rise of the right-wing" as one of the most serious threats facing Europe in the wake of France's terror attack. She also lectured viewers about why MSNBC wouldn't be showing the cover of the new Charlie Hebdo issue featuring Muhammad: "All of the networks of the NBC News group have made the decision, editorial decision, not to show it [the Charlie Hebdo cover] because we don't publish things that are as provocative as Charlie Hebdo is."
Mitchell then opined that one of the biggest threats facing the continent is "anti-Muslim sentiment throughout Europe, anti-immigration sentiment, the rise of the right wing in France."
Mitchell featured German journalist Ines Pohl. Pohl wrote an op-ed in Politico [1] sounding the alarm about "Christian," "anti-immigrant" sentiment in Europe:
We see a strong increase of the right in many European countries, in France, but also in Great Britain and Italy. And even in Germany, which is doing financially so well, we have the new party Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD, with its very strong anti-European attitude.
All those parties have one political approach in common: They not only use the real problems of unemployment and poverty for their political goals, but they are the masters at blaming the European Union, with its open markets and borders, for everything bad that is happening. Their goal is to re-nationalize their countries at the cost of the EU, to strengthen the power of their own countries and parliaments, and to fight the liberalization of their societies. Many of them have strong resentments against gay people and are deeply racist. They dream of the old order, when white male Christians from the upper class ruled their countries.
On MSNBC, Pohl complained about people "who are really right-wingers who are afraid of -- who fight a really open society and use this terror attack for their own purposes."
Mitchell [2] feared that France could "go too far" in responding to a terrorist attack.
On the network morning shows, Wednesday [3], NBC and ABC censored the Charlie Hebdo cover. Only CBS showed it.
A transcript of the January 14 segment is below:
12:04
ANDREA MITCHELL: All of the networks of the NBC News group have made the decision, editorial decision, not to show it [Charlie Hebdo cover] because we don't publish things that are as provocative as Charlie Hebdo is. That's an editorial decision. But the bottom line is, it is being grabbed up because it is a symbol now of defiance by the French people.
12:07
ANDREA MITCHELL: There are two other issues that need to be addressed. One is anti-Muslim sentiment throughout Europe, anti-immigration sentiment, the rise of the right wing in France. And anti-Semitism, particularly in France. How do you -- of course, this is an issue of concern throughout Europe and, particularly, of course, in Germany.
INES POHL (editor in chief, Die Tageszeitung): The problem is this is all intermingled now. I mean, those people who are afraid of immigration, who are really right-wingers who are afraid of -- who fight a really open society and use this terror attack for their own purposes. And we've seen all European countries, in Italy, France, in Great Britain, Sweden, really a raise of right-wing populist parties. And they use this fear of the people for their own purposes, and this is also a big danger besides the danger of possible terror attacks.
— Scott Whitlock is Senior News Analyst at the Media Research Center. Follow Scott Whitlock on Twitter. [4]