Responding to months of protests organized by Armenian National Committee branches around the world, TIME Magazine’s European edition published, in its October 17th issue, a brief apology to the Armenian community and all its readers for its dissemination earlier this year of a 70-minute DVD advertisement denying the Armenian Genocide. TIME’s apology was printed alongside an extensive letter to editors of TIME-Europe by leading Armenian, Jewish and human rights organizations. This response was published under France’s “right to reply” laws, which require a publication to provide editorial space to those unfairly attacked in its pages. The controversy over this issue began on June 5th, with the dissemination of a DVD, funded by the Ankara Chamber of Commerce, which featured denialist propaganda as part of a print and electronic advertisement package promoting tourism in Turkey.
Following the letter, TIME-Europe printed an apology for the dissemination of the DVD, stating that they had failed to properly review the DVD to establish its full contents before distributing it to their subscribers. “TIME regrets distributing the DVD and we are very sorry for the offense it has caused. The so-called documentary portion of the DVD presents a one-sided view of history that does not meet our standards for fairness and accuracy, and we would not have distributed it had we been aware of its content. Unfortunately, the DVD was not adequately reviewed by anyone at TIME because it was believed to be a benign promotion piece. We have since changed our review process so as to guarantee more vigilance in future. We apologize to the Armenian community, and to our readers.”
