Johanna Mikl-Leitner, the governor of Lower Austria and a politician from the Austrian People's Party (OVP), recently declared in an interview on ORF, Austria's national broadcaster, that the country must "fight against Islam".

Her statement was made in the context of defending her party's sudden shift in stance towards Austria's far-right Freedom Party, with which the OVP had previously ruled out forming a coalition due to the severe corruption scandals that had tainted their earlier partnership. The Freedom Party, founded by former Nazis and SS members after World War Two, was long seen as a party created by Nazis for Nazis.

The governor's statement was left unchallenged during and after the broadcast, exemplifying the normalisation of Islamophobic discourse within Austrian society. Hundreds of media professionals - producers, editors and journalists - had opportunities to question or condemn Mikl-Leitner's rhetoric, yet the silence was deafening.

Such passivity from the network is not merely a failure of journalistic integrity but a tacit endorsement of the dangerous ideologies her words represent. This complacency mirrors Austria's pre-Holocaust era when hateful rhetoric against Jews was allowed to fester unchecked. Then, as now, the media's complicity - whether through active support or passive indifference - played a pivotal role in legitimising hate.