1. John Foster "Chip" Berlet is an American investigative journalist, research analyst, photojournalist, scholar, and activist specializing in the study of extreme right-wing movements in the United States.
15 Facts About Chip Berlet
1. 2.
Since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Berlet has regularly appeared in the media to discuss extremist news stories.
3.
Chip Berlet was a senior analyst at Political Research Associates, a non-profit group that tracks right-wing networks.
4.
Chip Berlet, a paralegal, was a vice-president of the National Lawyers Guild.
5.
Chip Berlet has served on the advisory board of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University, and for over 20 years was on the board of the Defending Dissent Foundation.
6.
Chip Berlet served on the advisory board of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution.
7.
Chip Berlet attended the University of Denver for three years, where he majored in sociology with a minor in journalism.
8.
Chip Berlet became an active shop steward with the National Lawyers' Guild.
9.
Chip Berlet was a founder member of the Chicago Area Friends of Albania, leaving the organization when he relocated to Boston in 1987.
10.
In 1982, Chip Berlet joined Political Research Associates, and in 1985 he founded the Public Eye BBS, the first computer bulletin board aimed at challenging the spread of white-supremacist and neo-Nazi material through electronic media, and the first to provide an online application kit for requesting information under the US Freedom of Information Act.
11.
Chip Berlet was one of the first researchers to have drawn attention to the efforts by white supremacist and antisemitic groups to recruit farmers in the Midwestern United States in the 1970s and 1980s.
12.
Chip Berlet was originally on the board of advisers of Public Information Research, founded by Daniel Brandt.
13.
Chip Berlet criticized Ralph Nader and his associates for a close working relationship with Republican textile magnate Roger Milliken, erstwhile major backer of the 1996 presidential campaign of Pat Buchanan, and anti-unionization stalwart.
14.
Chip Berlet has provided research assistance to a campaign run by the mother of Jeremiah Duggan, a British student died in disputed circumstances near Wiesbaden, Germany, and to reopen the investigation into his death.
15.
Jack Z Bratich, an associate professor in the Journalism and Media Studies Department at Rutgers University, said that Berlet uses the methods of conspiracy theorists.