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In Seattle, a Nazi Gets a TV Show

Matt Hale, leader of the neo-Nazi World Church of the Creator, turns to public access cable TV to get his message out.

Five years after the radical right began to use the Internet to spread its propaganda, the neo-Nazi World Church of the Creator has launched an effort to reach people through an older medium: public access cable television.

Matt Hale, the publicity-hungry leader of the group, began showing a series of programs entitled "The White Struggle" in the Seattle area at 11:30 p.m. April 6 "as part of the World Church of the Creator's drive to increase membership."

Programs in the series are to air weekly, followed by another series, "White Revolution."

In the 1980s and early 1990s, many radical right groups used laws about public access to cable TV to get racist programming on the air. Neo-Nazi Tom Metzger, leader of White Aryan Resistance, led the charge in 1984, and by 1992 was showing his "Race and Reason" program in 62 cities in 21 states.

But in the latter part of the 1990s, such programming dropped off in favor of Internet hate sites.

"Many will be offended by watching this show, but many will also be pleased," Hale said of his new program. Although he bemoaned the late time slot of the show, Hale was pleased to describe it as one of the most controversial in the world.