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РусскийOutfront Media pulling all billboards for Armenian Genocide denial website
Last month, The Boston Globe’s editorial board delivered a piece calling on the U.S. government to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide. The article was published in print on April 24. Yet just a few pages over from the Globe’s evocative editorial sat a full-page advertisement for a controversial website that claims there never was an Armenian Genocide.
In response to inquiries from Boston to Outfront Media, the company that owns several of the billboards in question, spokeswoman Carly Zipp said the ads would be pulled this week from all cities they are presently running in, Boston magazine reports.
“We have decided to take them down early,” Zipp told Boston, adding that the billboards have drawn numerous complaints.
As for the Globe, the damage appears to be done. But is it a great hypocrisy to run a full-page promotion for a genocide denial website the same day the Editorial Board is calling for a national policy shift on the very issue?
The Globe wasn’t the only outlet facing this dilemma. The New York Times rejected an ad promoting a similar Armenian Genocide denial website called Let History Decide.
“We only accept ads that adhere to our advertising acceptability standards,” Linda Zebian, director of corporate communications for The New York Times, wrote in an email to Boston.
The Times’ policy makes specific reference to the Armenian Genocide. Zebian shared a portion of the paper’s advertising policy that reads: “We do not accept advertising that denies great human tragedies. Events such as the World Trade Center bombings, or the Holocaust, or slavery in the United States, or the Armenian Genocide or Irish Famine cannot be denied or trivialized in an advertisement.”
