Anthony L. Fisher’s Daily Beast writing on Antifa
In an episode on Antifa and political violence, Bob Zadek introduced his guest, the writer and filmmaker Anthony L. Fisher, by pointing to a piece Fisher had written in the Daily Beast, titled “Why Antifa Nazi Punching is Just a Gift to the Right.” Zadek described the piece as compelling and summarized its thesis as his own framing: that when the anti-fascist movement resorts to violence to suppress or oppose the alt-right, it becomes violence begets violence begets violence, and the point of all of it is lost, leaving no intellectual conversation, only people punching people on YouTube. Anthony L. Fisher on Antifa Violence & Neo-Reaction (2017)
Fisher’s own account of the article’s argument came later in the episode, when he described being invited on Al Jazeera to debate two self-professed Antifa activists, one British and one Italian, along with Mark Bray, whom Fisher identified as a Dartmouth adjunct lecturer and the author of a recently published book called Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Fisher said he was met with bad-faith arguments in which criticizing Antifa tactics as counterproductive or illiberal was treated as equating them with Nazis, and that he said in his Daily Beast article that they are not equivalent. According to Fisher, the article stated that far-right violence is completely demonstrable, that the far right has killed more people and hurt more people, and that there have been more far-right violent incidents than far-left incidents in the United States. Anthony L. Fisher on Antifa Violence & Neo-Reaction (2017)
Fisher also described a second Daily Beast piece: after the Al Jazeera debate he read Bray’s book and wrote a review of it in the Daily Beast. In that review, he said, he noted that the movement does not define itself only as anti-fascist but proposes what it calls a radical socialist revolutionary alternative — which Fisher characterized as the same promise that socialism will this time be egalitarian rather than devolving into starvation, genocide, dictatorship or cult of personality. Anthony L. Fisher on Antifa Violence & Neo-Reaction (2017)
The Daily Beast thus enters the episode twice as a venue: once for the original argument about Nazi punching, and once for Fisher’s review of the Antifa handbook. In both cases the excerpts give the outlet only as the place of publication; they say nothing about its editors, its readership, or its general stance.
Robbie Soave as a Daily Beast columnist
In a later episode on crowds and tribalism, Zadek introduced Robbie Soave, describing him as an associate editor at Reason.com, a columnist at the Daily Beast, and a writer for the New York Times, New York Post, CNN, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, and Forbes, which named him in 2016 in its “30 Under 30” category in law and policy. Zadek credited Soave with breaking one of the most interesting stories in recent times, the UVA fake rape case. On Crowds and Tribalism (2019)
Soave’s own account of that story concerned Rolling Stone, not the Daily Beast. He said the magazine produced a piece of journalism about sexual assault at the University of Virginia, written by a freelancer, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, who had interviewed a young woman identified in the story only as Jackie. According to Soave, Jackie claimed that as a freshman she had gone on a date, been taken to a fraternity party, lured upstairs, and ritualistically gang-raped by about ten men, the fraternity brothers, dragged through glass and treated like an animal as part of an initiation ceremony; her friends later discouraged her from going to the police, and even the Dean of Students did not want to do anything about it. Soave said none of it was true: the author had not forced Jackie to name the person she was on a date with, did not verify that this person existed, and did not try to interview Jackie’s friends, taking Jackie’s word that they would not want to talk. Soave said he was one of the first people to say the story sounded fishy because basic journalism steps of verification had not been taken. On Crowds and Tribalism (2019)
Soave further said the friends eventually revealed that Jackie had been “catfishing” them — making up a fake identity and sending messages pretending to be someone else — that the man who supposedly took her on a date does not exist, and that no party happened at that fraternity on that day. By all appearances, Soave said, Jackie was struggling with mental issues and had gone to elaborate steps to build a complete lie. He said Rolling Stone’s reputation was largely ruined after this, that the magazine was sued, that the fraternity members sued, and that the Dean of Students sued for being misrepresented in the story, calling it an iconic failure of good journalism. On Crowds and Tribalism (2019)
The Daily Beast figures in this episode only in Zadek’s introduction of Soave as a columnist there. The substantive discussion of the UVA case concerns Rolling Stone, Erdely, Jackie, the fraternity members and the Dean of Students; the excerpts do not connect the Daily Beast to the reporting or the litigation.
Across episodes
Two episodes touch the Daily Beast: the 2017 episode with Anthony L. Fisher, where the outlet is the venue for his Antifa articles and book review, and the 2019 episode with Robbie Soave, where Zadek lists it among Soave’s outlets in introducing him. The excerpts show no development in how the publication is treated — in both cases it is named only as a place where a guest wrote, and no excerpt describes the outlet’s own conduct, ownership or editorial position.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state when the Daily Beast was founded, who owns or edits it, where it is based, or what its editorial stance is. They do not say whether Zadek or his guests read it regularly, nor do they describe any Daily Beast article beyond the two Fisher pieces named and the fact of Soave’s column. Nothing in the sources indicates that the Daily Beast was itself a subject of criticism on the show; it appears only as a publication credit attached to guests.