Ad could lead to racist hate messages
|
by Andrew Carruth
Class of 2000 |
|---|
Tech News, in its last three issues, has run an advertisement sponsored by the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH) maintained by Bradley Smith. This ad has run under the title "The Revisionist" and points to the organization's website at http://www.codoh.org. This site advocates, among other things, that the Holocaust of world war two never occurred.
I looked at this web site looking for its "proof" that there was no Holocaust but couldn't find anything. I'm not surprised that they couldn't get any convincing evidence since no credible historical source I've read has denied the Holocaust and every one of these sources has showed the ruthless, genocidal determination of the Nazis that eventually led to the extermination of six million people in Nazi occupied territories.
I have some trouble understanding why Tech News decided to run this advertisement. What I hope happened is that the editorial staff didn't bother to read the content of the web site before they decided to print it in their newspaper three weeks in a row. This would reflect very badly on the editorial staff, but at least it would only be a matter of carelessness on their part.
However my concern is that Tech News knew the advertisement's content and ran it anyway perhaps because they were hoping for a reaction, or maybe because they didn't care. I can't think of worse reasons why they could have run this advertisement. The Anti Defamation League has called holocaust denial "one of the most important vehicles for contemporary anti-Semitism and the invention of a collection of long-time anti-Semites and apologists for Hitler." (See http://www.adl.org/frames/front_holocaust_denial.html) This ad could lead to all sorts of racist hate messages and running it seems irresponsible.
I've been told that the decision has been made by the Tech News staff to discontinue running of the ad. However I still want to know why Tech News decided to run this advertisement and why it continued running for three weeks.
| 
