Holocaust denial group promotes Web site in ad

NEW YORK, Jan. 14 (JTA) — Holocaust denial ads are once again appearing in college newspapers. An ad from the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust, headed by Bradley Smith — a well-known Holocaust denier — was published recently in at least 13 campus newspapers, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fairleigh Dickinson, Villanova, Rice and Cleveland State universities. Since 1991, Smith’s paid advertisements have appeared in nearly 80 campus newspapers, according to the Anti-Defamation League. But his latest campaign has a different twist. The current ad offers $50,000 to any individual instrumental in airing the “Video of the Century,” a video produced by Holocaust deniers, on national network television. It also provides the Web site address for Smith’s group. The ad is an incentive to check out Smith’s Web site, linking users “to the world of Holocaust denial and the hate world,” Jeffrey Ross, the ADL’s director of campus affairs and higher education, said in an interview. The ADL has sent an advisory to college newspaper editors across the country, warning them of the content of Smith’s advertisement and urging them to refuse it. “The ad got turned down in a lot of places because of the intervention,” said Ross. But in other cases, college editors apologized only after printing the ad. In 60 percent to 70 percent of the papers where the ad appeared, editors “had no idea what the ads were about,” said Ross. Some were “naive and not terribly well informed, but often they were very sloppy.”