Spain's El Pais (its national newspaper equivalent to the NY Times) apologizes to New Yorkers and to US citizens for their use of 9/11 images in their online ad campaign. Below is my translation to their editorial apology.:
"El PAIS asks forgiveness for the use of images of the attack against the Twin Towers of New York, which happened the 11 of September of 2001, in a campaign to increase circulation of online subscribers to ELPAIS.es. This lamentable campaign, made through electronic mail, gleaned two photographs of New York, one with the Twin Towers and another one of its smoldering remains, with the subtitle "A lot happens in one day. Imagíne what can happen in three months ". The promotion began Monday, 13 of September, and was sent to more than 50,000 adressees before it was cancelled on Wednesday, 15th of September."
"El PAIS, its publishing company and the Group PRISA are deeply sorry that a tragedy like this has been used to support an advertising effort, that in this case cost the life of more than 2,700 people. We ask forgiveness for that reason to the victims and their relatives, the citizens of New York who lived the aggression more directly, to whomever saw or was invaded by this electronic mail campaign's ominous message, and to the readers of our newspaper.
Any explanation is insufficient to account for the chain of errors that took place in the launching of this campaign, that some of our readers have described with justice as repugnant. We share their sentiment, which they have expressed in numerous messages and letters to the director and lament what happened.
The [owners] PRISA Group have opened an internal investigation to clarify how it was decided to put in circulation this promotional campaign and to adopt the suitable measures to prevent this from happening again. We have immediately requested from the company in charge of the electronic marketing campaign that this letter of apology be sent to all those who received the initial distribution of the campaign.
El Pais wants to express once again, like it has done in its 28 years of publishing and almost 10,000 editions, its solidarity with the victims of terrorism. As it said in the article published in El PAIS on the 12 of September of 2001, we declare today in all terms, those attacks affected all citizens of good will, without distinction of continent or borders and constituted an attack "against those who share democratic principles ".
The attempt of Barbarians who soon have followed with attacks elsewhere in the world, among them Madrid, have confirmed the necessity of a firm stand and attitude for democracy and against terrorism, of which must be excluded all irresponsible use of these types of images for gain."
Posted by Michele at September 17, 2004 12:06 PMThanks for contacting us and passing along your draft letter with the fax numbers and email addresses. I bet that had a lot to do with the retraction. At our office alone we faxed 137 letters.
Your idea of setting up the template you sent on every desktop in the computer center I bet probably netted several hundred emails. We had students, faculty and professors passing along your email with the links and template to other universities.
Thanks for speaking up for those who can no longer speak for themselves.
Posted by: Maria de los Angeles at September 17, 2004 03:24 PMI'm glad they responded. It was the right thing to do.
Thank you for sharing their letter with us.
Posted by: Tammi at September 17, 2004 09:59 PMGood work!
Posted by: David Weisman at September 18, 2004 01:07 AMBugger Bu$h
Posted by: Osama bin Ladin at September 18, 2004 06:10 AMObL - You're just jealous because you loony leftist types keep getting outwitted by an "idiot cowboy".
Keep mumbling & fuming. It makes me laugh ;-)
Michele - Thanks for posting this. I'm VERY relieved to hear that they've realized what a mistake they made. They sound sincerely contrite, and - I think - quite forgiveable.
Posted by: Harvey at September 18, 2004 12:40 PM