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Elle Reeve on the Charlie Kirk Shooting Suspect’s Inscrutable Memes

Columbia Journalism Review · Josh Hersh · last updated

In 2017, Elle Reeve, then a correspondent for Vice News, became a household name when she reported from the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—as neo-Nazis marched with burning torches and a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters.

Reeve has developed an expertise on what you might call the fringe beat, covering shadowy internet groups and right-wing political movements for CNN.

Those worlds collided when a very online man assassinated the right-wing political star Charlie Kirk in a meme-drenched attack that left much of the media world mystified. Reeve joins The Kicker to help make sense of it all.

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