Monday, April 4, 2005

N.Y. Times: "C-SPAN Regrets"

Here is the lead item in the April 5 N.Y. Times "Arts, Briefly":

C-Span Regrets

A C-Span producer has expressed regret for using the word balance to describe its plan to accompany coverage of a book by a professor of Holocaust studies with speeches by a man who has argued that Hitler was not fully responsible for the mass murder of Jews. Connie Doebele, the executive producer of "Book TV" on C-Span, said the word balance was never intended to be taken literally but was, instead, "internal jargon" referring to the use of other voices. The plan drew hundreds of protests from historians and other scholars and thousands from the public. The turmoil surrounded C-Span's intention to cover "History on Trial: My Day in Court With David Irving" (Ecco) by Deborah E. Lipstadt, a professor of Holocaust studies at Emory University. C-Span also intended to include coverage of talks by Mr. Irving, a British writer who sued her for libel for calling him a Holocaust denier. When he sued, the British Royal High Court found for Professor Lipstadt and concluded that Mr. Irving was anti-Semitic and racist and that he had persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence.

No comments: