https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/09/geert-wilders-says-the-eu-is-a-monster-that-always-wants-more-power.html
Dutch populist leader Geert Wilders insisted to CNBC that Europe needs less integration, not more.
When has it ever helped to try to silence populists? They just play their victim card and get even more popular.
Call them out. Ask tough questions. Have them explain in detail what they're proposing and the costs and benefits of it. It does demand a lot from the journalists though.
There's a substantial body of research on how mythbusting lies can be counterproductive because as part of doing so, you repeat the lie and this helps people remember it.
Also, and this is more speculative, but surely there's probably some survivor bias here? There are probably many thousands of populists neither of us has ever heard of because they haven't had their voices amplified.
If this link is too be believed it looks like talking about the misinformation while also adding a correction is the way to go.
https://www.apa.org/topics/journalism-facts/misinformation-recommendations
I still think that talking about it is better than trying to ignore or silencing.
Anecdotally we've been trying to ignore and silence our Swedish idiot party, the Sweden Democrats, for years, and now they are the second (third?) largest party here. Only now when the journalists start asking the difficult questions can we see a slight reduction in their poll numbers.