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LA Times apologises for "Polish concentration camp" slur

PR dla Zagranicy
John Beauchamp 24.02.2012 08:30
The Los Angeles Times has apologised for using the term “Polish concentration camps” and has published a statement in connection with the incident, reads a Foreign Ministry statement.
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The term had been used in an article titled “The ethics of disaster tourism: what is the right thing to do?”, and contained reference to the “Polish concentration camp” of Auschwitz.

On the day of publication, the Polish Embassy in Washington had sent a letter of protest to the newspaper’s editor and demanded a correction to the terminology used, recalling that last week the term had been deemed as improper on the Associated Press style sheet and that similar restrictions have already been introduced by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

The Los Angeles Times responded with a correction the very same day and an editor’s note explaining that Nazi concentration camps on Polish territory during World War II had been set up and run by German occupation authorities.

The newspaper also sent an apology to the Polish Embassy in Washington stating the unfortunate wording had been a mistake on the part of the author of the article. The editor reminded that reference to “Polish concentration camps” has been banned on the Los Angeles Times style sheet since 1995.

Between September 2010 and May 2011, Polish diplomatic missions in the United States have officially intervened eight times in cases of the use of the misleading term by the American press. (ss/jb)

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