The Austrian news magazine “profil” puts Martin Sellner on the cover. However, the editorial team does not give a good reason for this.
Logo of the identity movement to which Martin Sellner belongs. His portrait adorns the cover of the current issue of “Profil” Photo: Sachelle Babbar/imago
Martin Sellner looks serious on the cover of profile. “Not him again!” is the headline of the Austrian news magazine and features the spokesperson of the Identitarian Movement prominently to its large readership. According to the current analysis of the Austrian media achievedprofilewhich was once the Austrian counterpart of the Mirror was founded, around 250,000 people.
Without realizing it, the editorial team managed to predict readers' reactions to the new magazine through the cover. Why would Sellner, whose perfidious ideas of “remigration” as a result of the Corrective The meeting of far-right networks discovered has already been sufficiently discussed, it is not yet clear whether a platform will be offered again. The response of profile-Chief editor Anna Thalhammer in X: Posts a photo of the cover and comments on it with the words “Because some people ask why we put Martin Sellner on the cover. Therefore.” Good argument works differently.
The article's two authors also question whether someone like Sellner should appear on the cover, and respond that news magazines not only can, but should, focus on people like Sellner. The public already knows the ideas of the far-right influencer and a cover does not mean any sign of sympathy, they say. However, the central criticism is ignored here.
This makes right-wing extremists socially acceptable.
Of course, a news magazine can report on people like Sellner to “illuminate his social and democratic relevance, and possibly his threat potential,” as the authors also write. This potential threat is now well known, but the growing attention to Sellner and the Identitarian Movement does not diminish it. Rather, identities become socially acceptable.
Sellner has been trying to start a large far-right movement in Austria for years, but has only managed to gather a few hundred followers. So is this man really as important as everyone thinks he is? Rather not.
Not only in profile So one person is disproportionately exaggerated. For his followers, this cements Sellner's cult status, but for the rest of society they make him bigger than he is. “Austria's most famous far-right is becoming a media superstar,” writes his profile in X. Sellner doesn't even need to do it. Others are already doing the inflation for him.