Wednesday, March 23, 2005

C-SPAN Controversy cited in Columbia Journalism Review Daily

In an article entitled Propaganda Clothed as Critique, CJR Daily cites the C-SPAN controversy as an example of equivalence run amok:

A recent incident concerning C-SPAN illustrated to what absurd lengths the quest for equivalence at all costs can lead. The network announced that it would balance its coverage of a lecture by a professor of Holocaust studies named Deborah E. Lipstadt with a speech by David Irving -- who sued Lipstadt for calling him a Holocaust denier. A British court found for Lipstadt, finding that Irving was anti-Semitic, racist, and given to misrepresenting and misinterpreting historical evidence. "Falsifiers of history cannot 'balance' histories," said a petition sent to C-SPAN that was signed by more than 200 historians. "Falsehoods cannot 'balance' the truth."

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