Friday, March 25, 2005

JTA's "Breaking News" on C-SPAN controversy

JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) has the following brief report in today's "Breaking News" section:

Petition blasts C-SPAN on denier

More than 500 scholars signed a petition protesting C-SPAN’s decision to broadcast a lecture by a Holocaust denier.

The petition was organized by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies in response to the U.S. cable network’s decision to broadcast a talk by David Irving alongside a lecture by Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt. Lipstadt later rescinded permission for C-Span to tape her talk.

Irving lost a lawsuit against Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Books, in 2000, after Lipstadt accused Irving of being a Holocaust denier.

“The Holocaust is not a topic with ‘opposing views.’ It is a historical fact. Giving a platform to a Holocaust-denier to ‘balance’ a Holocaust historian is as outrageous as giving a platform to the Flat Earth Society to balance a speech by an astronomer,” Wyman Institute Director Rafael Medoff said.

No comments: