An Irresponsible Journalist
I wonder if Alan remembers me at all, the few times that I have seen him around town—if he remembers my face. Or if he has forgotten completely.
He had read a poem, a long time ago, at a literary event we were both participating in—he had, maybe, read more than one, but the one I remember the most was a charming, satirical ode to the pen he had just asked his wife for, that he would certainly misplace almost immediately after it had been handed to him.
He and his wife were my neighbors for a while—maybe for a year or so. We didn’t know them, really. Not even after he and I both read pieces at the same event. Alan and his wife—her name is Heidi—before they had their children, or at least before they had more than one, lived two houses down from the home my wife and I were renting.
Maybe just a friendly wave, or a hello. Between myself and Alan, and Heidi. Nothing more.
Alan did not remember me, I do not think, when I knocked on the door of his office in January 2015.
He did not remember my face, from two houses down. Or from the literary event.
I knew he was inside, but he refused to answer. I knocked. I waited. No response. I slid my business card—it said “reporter” on it, as my title, underneath, and then began to walk away. I had made it back outside into the cold air when I heard him behind me, standing in the doorway to the building where his office was. He wouldn’t come any closer. He was hesitant. There had been threats against him, and his family. I asked him if he wished to comment, or make a statement, or be interviewed.
I’d like to believe he told me he’d think about it, but I can’t, with confidence, say that was his response to me. He never reached out, regardless, and I didn’t want to press him anymore after that.
It didn’t seem worth it.
I wonder if he remembers me at all, as the years have passed and in the times I have seen him, or his wife—always smiling with a mouth full of bright, white teeth, around town. Their children, so much older now.
I searched his name online, and one of the first things that came up was an opinion piece that he had contributed in December 2023 to the local newspaper that, roughly ten years prior, had employed me, and pushed me into this story that he was, unfortunately, adjacent to. The local newspaper that had asked me to trudge down the street from my cubicle in the newsroom to his office and knock on his door to ask for a comment, or if he wished to be interviewed.
The opinion piece he had written was titled, “Reflections of An American Jewish Zionist.” The paywall prevents me from reading any of it.
I don’t think I wish to know what it says, though.
I wonder if he remembers me at all.
*
Usually once a year, sometimes more than once a year depending on how petty I might be feeling about it, I will look to see if James Fetzer has died yet, or not. As of right now, August 2024, he is still alive—he’s 83.
On the page with the search results, Fetzer’s Wikipedia is the first thing that comes up, and at the top of the page, there is a photograph of him, credited to Rolling Stone.
Fetzer is in a courtroom. He’s wearing a maroon button-down shirt and a gray blazer. His hair is bright white and thinning. It’s parted on the right. He looks smug, in the photo. He’s looking over his shoulder. But he also looks concerned. Concerned and maybe a little disappointed.
The photo is from a short Rolling Stone piece written by EJ Dickson, published in 2019—“Sandy Hook Father Awarded $450,000 In Conspiracy Theorist Suit.” Among other published works, James Fetzer is responsible for writing a 450-page book entitled Nobody Died At Sandy Hook.
He was sued for defamation over his egregious claims that the 2012 elementary school shooting never happened.
He lost.
*
I was already in way over my head with the job in January, 2015.
Or, if not in over my head, I realized that, a mere four months in, that I was not cut out for the more unsavory aspects of the job that I was being asked to do—things that I had not given consideration to when I had applied. When I had interviewed. When I had accepted. When I showed up on my first day, eager, excited, nervous.
Or, if I was not in over my head, I was just simply not cut out for the stress. Not at all built for the anxiety that came with the line of work.
Not at all built for the ambulance chasing I had been, and would be, asked to do—grim invasions of privacy in somebody else’s vulnerable moments that I would just never become comfortable with.
I didn’t have the patience, or the enthusiasm, to chase after every lead, and write every story. By the end of my time as a news writer, any patience, or enthusiasm that I had for any story, regardless of what it was about, was gone completely.
And no point, during my time employed by the newspaper, did I have the patience or the enthusiasm that was necessary to understanding all the pieces when it came to stories that were not even nuanced, really, but were merely overcomplicated by their many layers.
Stories that were overcomplicated, like James Fetzer.
I had no background in journalism. I was not familiar with AP Style—my first slip-up of including an Oxford comma where one should not have been in one of my earliest articles sent my editor into an absolute tizzy.
I can still hear him. Jerry. His southern Illinois drawl, shouting, somewhat in jest, but also somewhat in earnest, at me, across the rows of cubicles in the newsroom, exclaiming that from just a single instance of the Oxford comma in a news story, he was going to have a problem with me, and trying to break my habit of using it.
I had no background in journalism. But I could write. And, at that point, I had been a resident of Northfield, Minnesota, for around eight years, and had already worked myriad different jobs, so I was connected, or at least somewhat known, within the community, which is something that others in the newsroom, who were much younger and fresh out of “J School,” as it was often called, and had relocated to Northfield, for the job, could not offer.
I had no background in journalism, but was hired, nevertheless, as a reporter, for the Northfield News.
I lasted two years, nearly to the day, which is about a year longer than a lot of other reporters would last in this specific newsroom, for whatever reason. Whether they, too, realize they are not cut out for it, or they move on to write for a different paper.
I lasted two years, but I was already in way over my head, or simply not cut out for the more unsavory aspects of the job, merely four months in.
*
I’d never heard the name James Fetzer prior to January 2015, and I would like to think that if the events that occurred over the course of roughly a month, or, like, a month and a half, had not happened, or had even just unfolded a little differently—I would like to think I would have never heard his name.
I would like to think that this wouldn’t have been an experience in which I had the utter misfortune of being involved, adjacently or otherwise. That this wouldn’t be a story that I, rarely, if ever, wish to recount to any degree, but a story that I still carry with me.
James Fetzer, then, wouldn’t be someone that, at least once a year and sometimes more than once a year, depending on how I am feeling, I look up online to see if there is an obituary and if the tense of his Wikipedia entry has been altered from present to past.
I'm hesitant to say this all started with a tip. But it did. At least my introduction to the overcomplicated nature of these events. I was gently pointed in the direction of something that had already quickly developed, and had immediately gotten out of control.
I was encouraged to pursue it as a story.
I have heard the name James Fetzer. You cannot unhear it.
I first heard it in January of 2015. The middle of what became a long, frighteningly cold, and in the end, an unforgiving winter. A winter that would, eventually, take more and more of me.
This started with a tip. And that is ultimately how a lot of stories at the newspaper begin. Gently pointed in a direction. Given a suggestion. Encouraged. People, in the community, would reach out. They felt compelled to do so. People, in the community, often thought their stories were worth sharing with a larger audience. A mother would contact the newspaper, and implore someone in the newsroom to write a piece about her daughter—a plucky, young Girl Scout, driven to sell the most boxes of cookies for her troop.
People in the community would reach out. The elderly gentleman involved in an area vocal group would continue to leave information at the front desk of the newsroom about upcoming performances, with the hope that the paper would turn it into a feature story—only to become disappointed and angry when it was not deemed worthy of a story, feature, or otherwise.
People, in the community, thought their stories were the most important.
I had been given a tip. Or given a suggestion. Encouraged. Pointed in a direction. An acquaintance had sent a message to me, directly, informing me of what had already transpired, and was quickly escalating, between Fetzer, a handful of his supporters, and members of the community.
The truth, though, is that regardless of whether I had been given the tip or not about what was happening and what was on the cusp of happening involving James Fetzer, someone in the newsroom would have eventually had to deal with it. Whether that someone would have been me, or not, I can’t be certain.
I often was, the longer I stayed at the job, just a warm body in the newsroom at the wrong time when someone, from the community, came in, asking to speak with a reporter.
Their stories, of course, were the most important.
*
James Fetzer retired from his position as a professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth in 2006—I made the mistake, in the first story I had written about him, and the controversy he brought with him to our small Minnesota town, of simply referring to him as a retired professor.
He was quick to reach out, via telephone, and chide me. He had earned the title, Distinguished McKnight University Professor Emeritus, and I was to describe him as such.
Fetzer was always quick to reach out, via telephone, and chide me about the small details of my news stories about him that he did not like. His number becoming the first of many to end up on a piece of paper, taped to my desk, by the telephone, on a “Do Not Answer” list.
Fetzer was born and raised in California before studying philosophy at Princeton, followed by a stint in the Marines, stationed in Japan, during the 1960s. He became an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky in the early 1970s, but was denied tenure—there is a part of me that is curious as to why, but there is a part of me that can take a guess as to why—and spent the next ten years in visiting professor positions throughout the country before settling into his role in Duluth, in 1987, where he remained for nearly 20 years.
Of the information about James Fetzer, offered by his Wikipedia entry, it is not specified when, exactly, but there came a point in his life when he became interested in the promotion of conspiracy theories—the list is long, and it grows increasingly more unhinged and honestly rather sickening, the more you read up on what he believes, and the hurtful misinformation he has spent a large portion of his life spreading.
It can be difficult, honestly, to know where to begin—Fetzer believes, among other things, that John F. Kennedy’s assassination was planned by this country’s own government, and that the short, silent film clip of Kennedy in the motorcade, captured by Abraham Zapruder, is “fake.”
Fetzer believes that Minnesota United States Senator Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash in 2002, was actually killed as part of a plan orchestrated by Karl Rove, as well as other “out of control” Republicans.
Fetzer believes that the Holocaust is “not only untrue,” he is quoted as saying, “but provably false and not remotely scientifically sustainable.”
He believes that the 9/11 attacks were, like Kennedy’s assassination, perpetrated by the United States government, and that the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings was the work of controlled demolition.
He believes that nearly every very public and tragic event in over the last decade simply did not occur, and that they are often staged or are training exercises—events like the Boston Marathon bombing, or the shooting in Parkland, Florida, and at Pulse Nightclub.
He believes, among other things, that “Nobody Died At Sandy Hook,” and that the elementary school shooting that took place at the end of 2012 didn’t actually take place at all—that it never happened and it was a “FEMA drill.”
He believes, and has stated more than once, that funerals can be staged and death certificates can be forged.
He was so emphatic about these beliefs that he was willing to defend them, in court, when he was sued for defamation, by one of the parents of a student who died in the Sandy Hook shooting.
He lost.
*
In my mind, I always think that Norman looks a little like Phil Collins. But I realize that is maybe not really the case, and maybe I only think that because they are both short, white men of a certain age. And also both British.
I never liked Norman. I still don’t. And when I inevitably have to interview him, for the central role he played in what brought Northfield, Minnesota to the attention of James Fetzer, Norman tells me that he has always been a fan of “alternate truths.”
Conspiracy theories.
I never liked Norman. I sometimes used to try and see why people did. Maybe nobody actually did, and they only tolerated him. I am sure he thought himself charming, or charismatic enough, and that he could coast on that.
I had always been suspicious of him.
Norman, for a number of years, prior to this, saw himself as a restaurateur in the community. He had some success owning a dumpy pub—it always smelled damp, and like stale popcorn, but it was popular with certain circles of people who enjoyed what he had said to me once, in conversation, was “pub culture.” He also had some success owning an Indian restaurant—the quality of the food, often hit or miss, but it, like his pub, was inexplicably popular within certain circles of people in a small town flanked by two liberal arts colleges.
Norman got well in over his head, financially and just in terms of sheer responsibility, when he tried to open two additional restaurants, as well as a commercial kitchen space available to rent. The other two restaurants floundered, off and on, for about two years, while he tried to revamp the menus regularly at each, before they both unceremoniously shuttered.
I never liked Norman, and by the end of all of this, I liked him even less.
*
I didn’t have the patience, or the enthusiasm, to chase after every lead, and write every story. I certainly did not have the patience or the enthusiasm that was necessary to understanding all the pieces when it came to stories that were not even nuanced, really, but were merely overcomplicated by their many layers.
I had been given a tip. I have told you as much, already.
An acquaintance felt compelled to share with me, directly, information about what had already transpired. Things were already out of control—it happened quickly. And there were, of course, ways for it to be contained. Different decisions that could have been made to prevent things from getting any worse.
As a fan of what he called “alternative truths,” Norman was aware of James Fetzer, and his beliefs, and apparently was fond of them. Saw some kind of value in them. He was curating a series of “talks” as he described them, at his pub, where two people, on opposing sides of an issue, were expected to debate. The talks were supposed to be lively, but friendly, in the end. And as a fan of these alternative truths, Norman had extended an invitation to James Fetzer, and asked him to participate in one of these talks.
Fetzer accepted.
And in his acceptance of the invitation, if I am recalling this correctly, his name began to appear on the pub’s event calendar, as a means of promotion. The mostly liberal clientele who at the time, favored Norman’s pub, saw Fetzer’s name and knew enough about him, and his beliefs, that the backlash, and the uproar, started immediately.
The person who had apparently been slated to debate Fetzer—Alan. Alan, who would not answer the door to his office when I knocked on it. Alan quickly removed himself from the debate and then began circulating a petition as a means of protesting Fetzer’s scheduled appearance.
Norman was besieged with angry phone calls and messages—angry, but also disappointed, presumably, and frustrated—from patrons of his pub, and the community at large.
There’s a fine line, in news writing, or “reporting,” between subjectivity and objectivity.
It took me a long time, and I don’t think that even in the end, I was very good at it, because I often struggled to err on the side of objective writing in the stories I was responsible for. It was hard for me—it still is hard for me—to remove myself completely from the things that I write.
It seems like I should have written more, and maybe it seems that way because they were difficult stories to write, and arduous interviews to conduct, but I wrote three stories chronicling James Fetzer’s experience in Northfield, Minnesota, and in the earliest of the three, where the stage was initially set and we are introduced to some of the players involved, it was very hard to remain objective.
Almost impossible.
Certainly difficult when it came to simply just reporting the opposition here—Fetzer’s beliefs, and everyone who disagreed with them, but the more I sat with this story, as it was unfolding, it was a challenge for me not to interject, or editorialize within the moment.
I was never certain if I could interject. If it was allowed. Or discouraged. I think, if anything, specifically in a situation like this one, my hope is that during the conversation, the person I was interviewing would arrive at a realization, or a truth, that was more obvious to me than it perhaps was to them.
Or maybe they were aware, and just unwilling to divulge it, as a means of avoiding the acceptance of being in the wrong.
Rather than addressing the concerns of his patrons and the larger community directly or even realizing the mistake he had made, and canceling the event as a means of keeping the peace, Norman passed along every message he received—many of them emails—directly to Fetzer.
And Norman, allegedly, at the time I interviewed him, a decade ago, did not see why this might create a much larger problem.
He, quite literally, thought nothing of it.
*
And upon receiving the messages from concerned and upset members of the community that Norman had forwarded along, James Fetzer could have gracefully accepted that his harmful rhetoric was not welcome in Northfield, and faded away back into the extremist cesspool he crawled out of.
But that is not what he did.
It isn’t funny, really. Maybe funny in an appropriate bleak way. But if you search the name “Veterans Today” online, the website itself is not the first result, but rather, it is a Wikipedia entry, which describes it as an “antisemitic and conspiracy theory” site, as well as a “pro-Kremlin propaganda outlet.”
Veterans Today, though, alleges it is a “military veterans and foreign affairs journal.”
In 2015, Fetzer was a regular contributor to Veterans Today, and in response to the pushback he had received about his scheduled appearance in Northfield, for a debate at Norman’s pub, he published an essay called “The Abdication of Reason and Rationality in Northfield, MN.” In it, he laments about the outcry he was on the receiving end of, and defends his right to spread his harmful, dangerous beliefs and rhetoric.
And if Norman allegedly saw nothing wrong with sending these messages directly and providing Fetzer with the contact information and full names of the individuals who were upset, angry, and frustrated, Fetzer himself allegedly saw nothing wrong with including screenshots of these messages in his piece for Veterans Today.
He saw nothing wrong with not obscuring or censoring the contact information and full names of the individuals who were upset, angry, and frustrated in those screenshots.
He told me that he, in fact, had no idea how to obscure, or censor, this information. No knowledge of how even a rudimentary program on a computer might be able to help him do this.
The threats, I think, started almost immediately.
Hate mail. Whatever you wish to call it.
The threats came from the readers of Veterans Today. Threats so vile and serious that a person like Alan—Alan, who had written an ode to the pen he had borrowed from his wife and would certainly misplace almost immediately. Alan, who would not answer the door to his office when I knocked on it, on a cold January afternoon.
Threats so vile and serious that, apparently, the FBI became involved.
It was after Fetzer’s piece on Veterans Today was published when I had received the tip.
*
I never liked Norman. He was aloof and smug—he had been, with how he ran his businesses and ran two of them right into the ground. And he was in the conversation I had to have with him, after things had immediately gotten out of control.
Norman, in the interview we had, used, I’m sure, what he thought was the most clever line he could think of at the top of the conversation. “I didn’t expect the sort of Spanish Inquisition,” he said, laughing at his own joke.
He used the same line in the conversation he had with Jon Tevlin, a writer for the Star Tribune, based out of Minneapolis, who had also picked up the story. And adding to the stress I was under, simply trying to unpack the details of something so overcomplicated, my editor, and his boss, the publisher of the paper, were quite literally breathing down my neck for a story, because they did not want to get scooped, in our own town, by a much larger publication with more available resources.
Tevlin was a much more capable writer than I was ever going to be. He left the Star Tribune in 2018, but he had well over a decade’s worth of experience, and he was a columnist too—less focused, in his piece about Fetzer, on objectivity.
I had been on the job for a little over four months.
*
Things continued moving at a pace I could barely keep up with. Even until the end, I always felt like I was a few steps behind where I was expected to be. And after the first of the three stories I had written about James Fetzer was published, things only got worse for everyone involved.
I am uncertain what writing for a newspaper is like today. But, in 2015, writing for a newspaper meant you wrote for both the publication that went to print and for the web, which is where a large portion of the readership came from. It was also, at this time in the history of the Northfield News, an absolute nightmare to moderate the comments posted from registered users of the site, regarding certain stories.
The website has been subject to a number of redesigns and relaunches in the last ten years. The first attempt, prior to my departure from the newsroom, made it so that users had to log in with their Facebook credentials in order to comment on a story. Prior to this, though, anyone could register with the site and create a somewhat anonymous account—revealing as much or as little of their identity as they wished to.
The comments on all of the stories involving Fetzer became a shouting match for a handful of specific people from the community, trying to take one another to task over the whole ordeal—as well as Fetzer himself, and a few of his supporters from Veterans Today, chiming in, making things more insufferable and caustic.
Things continued moving with a pace I could barely keep up with, but shortly after the first story about all of this was published, Norman finally made the decision to call his politically charged “talks” at his pub off completely—the event series was scrapped.
“Our livelihood is threatened. Our Staff is harassed. Our regulars worried,” Norman said in the statement, announcing that he was canceling the “talks.”
And this could have been the end, honestly. It could have. After being met with the initial criticism and outcry, and after the event itself was canceled, James Fetzer could have made a sensible decision. And chose to bring his harmful and dangerous beliefs elsewhere.
Fetzer chose to do something else.
And this is a moment when, in this story, as it was unfolding, I wish I had done something differently.
If I had perhaps been stronger emotionally, or more confident, that I would have asked different questions. If I would have had it within to interject, and point at what was obvious to me. Because there were things that bothered me, of course. And questions I felt like I should have, or could have asked, but was too afraid to open my mouth.
That is what I always come back to, truthfully, when I think about this story. I think about James Fetzer, yes. I think about the hateful things he said, and the looming sense of dread that cast a shadow over my workday for around a month. But I think about where I fell short—ethically, for myself. And the shame I still carry with me—about what I should have, or could have, done differently.
I didn’t believe Norman, when he told me that he didn’t think anything would happen when he passed along the personal contact information, and full names, of the people in the community who were angry with him, and his decision, to invite a Holocaust denier and conspiracy theorist to speak at his pub.
I didn’t believe James Fetzer, when he told me that he didn’t think the readers of Veterans Today would go after those same people, when he shared the personal contact information and full names, of those who were upset, and disagreed with his beliefs.
I continued to disbelieve Fetzer, after the events were canceled, and he refused to go away.
*
James Fetzer is not a reasonable man.
It’s something I was aware of, and understood, even before I spoke with him on the phone while I was putting together the first story about him, and the violence he attracted. And because Fetzer is not a reasonable man, at all, he refused to be silenced.
It is announced, after Norman canceled all of his politically leaning events at his pub, that Fetzer will descend upon our small, Minnesota town, regardless.
In late January, we, in the newsroom at the Northfield News, received word that James Fetzer was going to be speaking in a cramped conference room at the Northfield Public Library the following month.
An associate of Fetzer’s, who also, at the time, contributed regularly to Veterans Today, had a very, very loose (from what I could tell) connection to a Madison, Wisconsin, non-profit, and this individual used that guise to book the space, conveniently neglecting to mention James Fetzer at all in making the reservation.
The staff at the library, as I discovered when I reached out to them for comment, had no idea what was going on.
They were mortified. They were furious. Rightfully so.
In speaking with Fetzer, again, for this specific story, he alleged his friend made the reservation, through the non-profit connection, so that it would be free of charge.
I didn’t believe James Fetzer.
Why should I. Why would I.
I didn’t believe that he had done this intentionally so that he could try to sneak his way in.
I was in no position, emotionally, to counterargue or interject. I remained quiet.
I think about where I fell short—ethically, for myself. What I should have, or could have, done differently.
*
I remember, in the days leading up to James Fetzer’s event at the library—mid-February, Jerry, my editor, was remiss, at first, to even give it coverage, which I was grateful for.
“We’ve given Fetzer a lot of free ink,” he said, his drawl a little weary. However, Jerry quickly changed his mind—regardless of the amount of free ink the paper had given Fetzer, and the controversy surrounding him, it was decided that someone, apparently, needed to be at this event.
“In case something happened,” Jerry said to me, when I was standing in his office.
He didn’t ask me, directly. It was implied. That I had to. I had to be the one. Was there any other way?
So I said yes. Sure. Fuck it. I would go.
I got an “atta boy” from Jerry—one of many that I did receive, from him—his way of encouraging me, I think, during the time he was my editor.
But, an “atta boy,” no matter how many times you are the recipient of one, or a hearty slap on the shoulder—none of that makes up for how much of myself I lost, sitting at my desk, in a cubicle, in the newsroom, for two years.
Seeing James Fetzer, in person, was revolting, and I made no effort to introduce myself to him, either before or after the event.
I hadn’t arrived late enough to have missed any of his presentation—a bland PowerPoint that he could barely get up and running with the equipment he had—but I arrived too close to the beginning of his talk, and I was not able to get a seat.
To my surprise, all of the chairs in the room had been spoken for, with latecomers awkwardly attempting to find a place to stand.
I hoisted myself up onto a ledge near the back of the room, balancing my computer on my lap—it was part of my job, as a news writer, to both take notes, yes, on what I was witnessing, but also, when covering an event, I was expected to share my observations in a stream of 140 characters or less, through the Twitter account I used specifically for this job.
As I sat, I wondered if any of the personalities that lurked within the comment section on the paper’s website, in stories about Fetzer, or other more controversial issues in the community, were in the audience.
I wondered if any of those individuals would, somehow, slip, and reveal themselves, even in passing, before the night was over. If I would be able to put a face to the usernames that became the bane of existence within the newsroom.
Fetzer’s presentation was split between what had been at this time, his two favorite subjects—the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, and the bombing at the Boston Marathon. He was unrelenting, as he spoke, nearly uninterrupted for 60 minutes, barking and yelling one absolutely unhinged, unbelievable, deplorable statement after another.
The shooting at Sandy Hook, of course, did not happen. A hoax. Crisis actors were used. Funerals were staged. Death certificates were forged.
The bombing at the Boston Marathon, also, of course, did not happen. It was an elaborate ploy by the government to, apparently, restrict the Second Amendment rights of American citizens.
After his PowerPoint had concluded, he had time to take a few questions from the audience—I can recall a very frail woman standing up, her voice shaky, saying that she was willing to indulge a number of his beliefs as described that evening, but she drew the line at his statements about the Holocaust.
To this, Fetzer began to fumble, slightly, with how he answered—refusing to actually say he was a Holocaust denier, but again reiterating that he did not consider it to be “remotely scientifically sustainable.”
There was a notoriously cantankerous, opinionated member of the community who was amongst those in the audience—Victor. He would have been in his 80s at the time. He was visibly nonplussed by the presentation—by Fetzer, as a whole, and he spoke up, at the end, and rather than asking a question, simply said the evidence presented was “not very compelling.”
This was, as you might imagine, upsetting to James Fetzer, who snapped back viciously, as did a member of the audience, and apparent supporter of Fetzer’s beliefs and work.
My editor had sent me there, to cover the event, “in case something happened.” And this moment of volatility was what he was looking for. What he wanted.
Nothing did happen, though. Outside of this brief flash of tempers, and raised voices. The moment passes. And the event itself ends rather abruptly—the time for questions or comments from the audience is cut short as library staff, their patience seemingly exhausted, come into the room, announce that the time is up, and ask everyone to leave.
And there are a few places, in these events, as they continued to unfold, where I am ultimately disappointed in myself. I have regrets. And I wish I had done something differently, if I felt like I could have interjected in any way. And parked on the ledge at the back of the conference room at the library, my legs nervously dangling and my fingers furiously tapping away at my laptop, attempting to document what I was witnessing, I didn’t feel like I could truly speak up.
What plagued me, in the end, as we were hastily asked to leave the conference room—bodies spilling out of the narrow library hallway, into the frigid night, and what I think about now when I revisit these events is simply, why are we to believe James Fetzer?
He claims that there are elements to the Holocaust that are not scientifically sustainable, and that those elements are untrue. Why should we believe him. He wasn’t there. He was not living in a Nazi-occupied part of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s.
He claims that the crumbling of the World Trade Center towers in New York, on September 11th, 2001, was carried out as part of a much larger conspiracy, and was the result of controlled demolition. Why should we believe him. Was he in New York, at that time? More than likely, in September of 2001, he was teaching in Duluth, at the University of Minnesota.
Why should we listen to him.
He claims that the school shooting that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary was staged—part of a FEMA drill. That nobody died. Everything was fabricated. In his PowerPoint presentation, there are photos of him and one other individual, allegedly skulking around what they claim is the exterior of the school itself.
Why should we believe what he says? That his word is accurate. That the photos he is showing us are, in fact, credible.
During his talk, at the Northfield Public Library, and at no point, during the conversations I was unfortunate enough to have with him, did James Fetzer say why we should take his word. Why what he said was the truth.
But if you were to disagree with the word of one man, you were complicit in the abdication of reality and reason.
*
I remember how much time I spent the morning after James Fetzer’s talk at the library, slumped down in my chair, at my cubicle, trying to comb through my notes, and the series of tweets I had fired off during the event, attempting to cobble together an accurate depiction of what I had witnessed.
Perhaps a better journalist, or a more dedicated one, would have quickly been able to write and file a story immediately after the event.
I was never going to be a better or more dedicated journalist.
I remember finishing the story, and filing it with my editor—it, much like the event itself, came to a very unceremonious end. I put on my winter jacket and went for a walk through Northfield’s downtown. I was often doing this. Just getting up and leaving my desk, and walking out the door—the longer I was at the job, and the further it was pulling me down into a terrible depression, the more walks I took during the day.
My editor, Jerry, never knew where I was going or what I was doing until he finally, one day, asked me why I was always getting up and leaving without telling anyone.
I used to do it as a means of taking a break, and getting a small amount of exercise, but also to try, as best as I could, to clear my head a little. Or decompress.
The piece reflecting on James Fetzer’s presentation in Northfield went live on the website, and it was immediately met with criticism from Fetzer himself. In yet another post for Veteran’s Today, he lamented about how little information about the contents of his talk I provided. In a sense, he was unhappy that I did not, word for word, transcribe in great detail, his harmful rhetoric and unhinged beliefs about both the Boston Marathon and the shooting at Sandy Hook.
He said that the Northfield News was just as bad as the “mainstream media.”
He said that I was an irresponsible journalist.
I was never going to be better or more dedicated.
*
I left my job at the paper almost two years to the day I was hired. I had felt ill-equipped and in over my head only after a few months, and it never got any easier. What I was being asked to do, or what was expected of me—it never felt better and I just continued to muddle through the rest of the year, and well into 2016, at the expense of both my mental and physical health.
James Fetzer eventually moved on.
And I wonder now, a decade later, if he still thinks about Northfield, and about Norman, and the piece that he published on Veterans Today that doxxed a number of individuals in the community.
I wonder if he ever thinks of me. The news writer whose life he made a nightmare for roughly a month in the coldest, darkest winter.
James Fetzer eventually moved on.
In 2019, Fetzer was sued by Leonard Pozner, the father of Noah Pozner, who was killed during the Sandy Hook shooting—Pozner also sued Fetzer’s attributed co-writer of the book, Nobody Died At Sandy Hook, Mike Palecek.
Noah Pozner was six years old. The youngest among those killed.
Palecek and Fetzer defended themselves in the suit, and a circuit court found them guilty of defamation. A jury in Wisconsin awarded Pozner $450,000 for defamation.
On his website, Fetzer has a link set up to take you to a separate page where you are encouraged to donate to him.
I used to think it was funny that he called me an irresponsible journalist.
However, it’s the one thing he’s said that I actually believe.
Afterword (September, 2025)
On August 27th, 2025, there was a shooting at Annunciation Church and School in Minneapolis—less than 40 miles from my home. Two students were killed, and 20 people were injured. The shooter died by suicide at the scene.
James Fetzer, currently, co-hosts a podcast called The Raw Deal, and on a recent episode, he states that this school shooting, in Minneapolis, was “staged.”
And I don’t know. If I had been sued for defamation and lost, and was ordered to pay $450,000 to a parent who had lost their child in a school shooting, over a decade prior, I would probably discontinue using this kind of rhetoric—that tragedies, involving gun violence, are all fake, or staged.
But then again, what do I know.
I was an irresponsible journalist.
