The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/i/irving.david/press/irving-vrs-lipstadt//README.000303



12th MEDIA CLIPPINGS UPDATE: Irving vrs. Lipstadt & Penguin Books
UPDATED 03 March 2000  Dan Yurman  mdoidaho@yahoo.com

Press clippings about the trial may be found at this URL.

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/i/irving-david/press/irving-v-lipstadt.html

Permission granted to post this article for non-profit purposes on any
public data network, web site, or mailing list.  This is an independent
index and comments on the press coverage of the trial.  The update is posted
at the above site in collaboration with Ken McVay's Nizkor Project
http://www.nizkor.org

*** Highlights in this Issue

-- The Eichmann diaries are released by the Israeli government to the
Lipstadt defense team reconfiguring public perceptions about the trial,
Irving, Lipstadt, and the Holocaust.

-- An email is posted on a moderated Internet discussion list for academics
from Kevin MacDonald observing he might amend his testimony before the court
that Irving is not an anti-Semite to say that he is.

-- A novelist with extreme right wing views from Australia poses as a
working journalist in the courtroom press gallery in London and is found out
by D.D. Guttenplan, among others, after making "bizarre remarks" there.


*** Background on the Trial

In her book "Denying the Holocaust; The Growing Assault on Truth & Memory,"
Emory University Professor Deborah Libstadt accuses David Irving, a British
writer, of deliberately misrepresenting the facts regarding the Holocaust.
In his writings and speeches Irving denies that six million people died in
the Holocaust. He denies that the Nazi's gassed Jews in concentration camps.
  Irving is suing Lipstadt and her publisher Penguin Books for defamation in
a British court.

Under British law the burden is on Lipstadt to prove she did not "defame"
Iriving in her book.  Proving the Holocaust, which is the theme of the
trial, focuses a spotlight on the issues and the deniers.  The outcome of
the trial, is expected have impacts on perceptions of the history of the
Holocaust for years to come.

The cutting edge of the trial, which is being heard before a judge but no
jury, will likely be brought to bear on four key issues.

* Descriptions of Irving's extremist views and descriptions of his
statements about the Holocaust, [Lipstadt]

* Documentation of Irving's manipulation of historical source material to
support his denier viewpoint, [Evans and others for the defense]

* The truth of the real number killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust, and

* Hitler's role in the 'final solution,"which Irving categorically denies.


*** Summary of Press Coverage [through 03.03.00]

-- The trial begins 01.11.00

The trial began January 11th and attracted significant press coverage in the
UK though much less so in the US.  UK papers have published news articles
about trial proceedings on a daily basis while US papers have for the most
part published updates on a weekly or biweekly basis.  The lower visiblity
of the trial in terms of the US media response is illustrated by the fact
that there has been virtually no television coverage, except for CNN, in the
US.  Almost all US coverage has been in print media.

Having said that it is important to note there is a large volume of print
media coverage of the trial.  An index of print coverage lists as of
03.03.00 over 300 separate media reports.  Now in its seventh and final week
of proceedings, media coverage has been recorded in the UK, western Europe,
Canada, the US, and Australia.  The courtroom is packed with press and
onlookers according to media reports.

-- A dry period in February

Press coverage peaked in early February and then essentially dropped off a
cliff after the 5th. There was more coverage in late January of Irving's
so-called "pram poem" from his diary.  David Irving, who is the plaintiff in
the case, commented on his web site [cited below] about the slower pace of
news coverage of the trial.  Press coverage did not increase much through
02.26.00 despite the cross examination by Irving of the defense team's main
witnesses, a group of historians who had reviewed Irving's writings.

-- A deluge of news begins February 27th

On Sunday 02.27.00 the situation changed radically when the Israeli
government announced it was releasing the jailhouse diary of Adolph
Eichmann.  The diary, described by the wire services as a "rambling 1,300
page hand written manuscript," had been locked away in the state archives
since Eichmann was hanged for war crimes in 1962.  The Israeli government
said it has made the decision to release the document in order to weigh in
on the side of Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, who is being sued by Irving.  The
request to release the document came from her defense team.

Press coverage of the decision to release the diaries and the extracts of
the diaries themselves catapulted the trial and its issues to the front
pages of many newspapers, and even triggered coverage in the Washington Post
and USA Today.  Both papers had not covered the trial previously.  However,
the Eichmann story was reported by these two papers with datelines from
Jerusalem and not London.

The diaries story broke on 02.27.00 and for the next two days it was owned
by the major wire services - Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence Presse
France.  So much information was flowing that some wires updated as often as
three times a day with files from reporters in Jerusalem and London.  It was
not until Wednesday 03.01.00 that many major US papers ran their own primary
coverage of the release of the diaries and their link to the trial.

The trial judge prohibited the principals in the case from posting the
electronic version of the diaries, which are in German, on the Internet.
Many newspapers published extracts from the diaries on their companion web
sites.  The diaries were the subject of extensive commentaries in the press
too numerous to record here.  One statement in the diaries drew considerable
attention.  Eichmann wrote in conclusion he had been "betrayed by false gods"
who led him astray.

Overall, in three days the press situation went from one of drift, doubt,
and obscurity to electrifying sensation reconfiguring public perceptions
about the trial, Irving, Lipstadt, and the Holocaust.

The trial has now recessed until 03.13.00 when closing arguments will be
presented to the court.  Since the opening arguments by both sides generated
significant press coverage there is every reason to speculate that closings
could contain plenty of sound bites as well.


*** How to Use this Update

This is one of a series of updates on media coverage of the libel trial
taking place in London.  The updates will continue weekly, or more
frequently, as long as the trial is in progress.  The trial proceedings took
place Monday through Thursday each week while it was in session.

The information in this posting consists of pointers or URLs, e.g., web site
addresses, which contain news media reports about the trial. This update
does not itself contain content from these web sites, only their addresses
on the Internet.  The objective of this update is to provide the reader with
access to information.  Ultimately, the decision to read about this trial is
up to you.  If you are interested, point your web browser to the addresses
listed in this article.


*** Online Archives & Sources

-- Lipstadt

Deborah Lipstadt, on the advice on her attorney, has said little to the
press.  There is no "official" website carrying material from her or the
defense team.

--- Nizkor Media Clips Archive "Holocaust Denial on Trial"

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/i/irving-david/press/irving-v-lipstadt.html

http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/i/irving.david/press/irving-vrs-lipstadt

These are two online archive of English language media clips include a
robust catalog of much of the UK, US, and Jewish press coverage of the
trial.  You can view each of the files in this directory with any web
browser.  This is an archive of selected media clips, in text and html
formats, mostly from the UK press about the trial.  As the trial is taking
place in London, this is good source material.  US coverage is included when
it is available.  You can download these clips using the FTP protocol built
into your web browser, just point and click, or use a software package like
WS-FTP.

--- Web Portals

A web portal is defined as an Internet site with multile media and content
about a subject.  Portals include specific content but also links to related
sites and online discussion forums.

	ABOUT.COM

http://holocaust.about.com/

http://holocaust.about.com/education/holocaust/library/misc/bllibelnews.htm

This web site includes a very good selection of US and UK media clips
archive in html format.  It includes plain English summary updates about the
trial proceedings, source materials from the principals, a moderated forum
for comments from readers, and a wealth of reference materials and web links
about the Holocaust. All materials are in HTML format so you can read them
with any web browser.

	VIRTUAL JERUSALEM

http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/History/Timetravel/articles/677001.htm

This site became active in February '00 featuring an overview of the trial
with links to various Holocaust-related web sites.  News coverage is
organized with a variety of sources including UK papers, JTA, US Jewish
newspapers and organizations, and the Reuters wire service. There is a
moderated bulletin board for discussion of the trial.

	YAHOO

http://fullcoverage.yahoo.com/fc/World/Holocaust/

YAHOO carries both the Associated Press and Reuters at http://www.yahoo.com/
You can set up alerts for free in the news pages and have them emailed to
you. To do this you must register, for free, by creating a "my yahoo" web
page with your preferences.  Check Yahoo's UK & World News pages for trial
coverage.  A major package by Yahoo includes pointers to an international
Holocaust conference in Sweden and the Irving / Lipstadt trial. Yahoo
continues to update this page as media coverage becomes available about the
trial.

-- David Irving's web sites

Irving is the plaintiff in the case.  There is a very large volume of source
material related to the trial at these sites.  All sites listed below are
accessible with your web browser.  Irving's website also carries news
reports from the French and German news media in their original languages.
Some of the material posted on the web site has become part of the
proceedings of the trial.

website: http://www.fpp.co.uk

daily newsletter: http://www.fpp.co.uk/online.html

two year dossier on the action with all the pleadings, etc.
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Legal/Penguin/PenguinIndex.html

special trial link: http://www.fpp.co.uk/trial

daily transcripts from the court reporter service:
http://www.fpp.co.uk/docs/trial/transcripts.html


*** Update on Media Coverage

--- Jewish Press

Coverage for the U.S. and international Jewish press, including Israeli
newspapers such as the Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/ is based for the
most part on the Jewish Telegraphic Service, http://www.jta.org/  At least
once a week JTA's web site posts an update of in-depth news reports on the
trial from Douglas Davis, a London-based correspondent.

Ha'aretz in Tel Aviv, Israel http://www.haaretz.co.il/ in its second and
most significant commitment of ink to trial coverage published three long
articles, including an interview with Irving, on 02.04.00.  In a single
edition the paper committed over 5,000 words to its coverage of the trial.

Like other papers in Israel, Haaretz devoted extensive coverage to the
release of the Eichmann diaries.  Tom Segev, a reporter at Ha'aretz who has
written extensively on the Holocaust, wrote that the decision to release the
diaries should have been made long ago.

The Los Angeles Jewish Journal http://www.jewishjournal.com/ has not only
run the JTA stories, but also has published several editorials about the
trial.  See below under the 'US Newspapers' section of this report for a
description of the Journal editor's wrestling match with the Los Angeles
Times in which he won a five paragraph retraction by the Times over its
coverage of the trial.  The Journal has also begun a campaign to collect
letters of support for Prof. Lipstadt.  As of 02.11.00 the Journal's editor
reports 115 letters have been received in response to the campaign.

The New York Jewish Week http://www.thejewishweek.com/, one of the largest
US Jewish weekies, has published one editorial and one article from JTA.  On
02.17.00 it published an analysis by reporter Steve Lipman asking whether
many Jews even care about the trial. Said one Holocaust survivor, "How can
you deny what happened?"  In it edition for 03.02.00 the paper also
announced it was collecting letters of support for Prof. Lipstadt

The Forward at http://www.forward.com/ is the online version of one of
America's oldest Jewish newspapers.  While it has published only brief
coverage of the trial, its home page offers a long list of US, UK, and
Jewish press web sites in both countries and in Israel.  If you want to read
what the rest of the Jewish press in the US and UK have to say about the
trial, and don't mind slogging through the web sites one-at-a-time, it is a
good place to start your search.

--- Wire Services

Reuters has published two significant stories on the trial, both by reporter
Kate Kelland.  The first was on the opening day of the trial and the second,
an exclusive based on a personal interview with Irving at a London
restaurant not far from his home, appeared on 02.04.00. Both Reuters stories
have been carried by many European and US newspapers.  Also, ABC Television
News at its web site http://abcnews.go.com/ has carried both of Kelland's
pieces as has CNN http://cnn.com/

The Associated Press carried unbylined stories on opening day (01.11.00) and
again on 01.26.00 (Irving's statement about the gas chambers at Auschwitz)
and on 02.04.00 being a summary of the coverage of the trial from Ha'aretz.
The AP stories on 01.11 & 01.26 appeared in the New York Times and the
Washington Post, among others.

--- British Press

The British press has covered the trial extensively. Daily wire service
reports filed by the end of each day the trial is in session are available
at http://www.lineone.net/  Use that web site's search engine to find
current and back issues of the coverage.  Seach on "Lipstadt" without the
quote marks.

Courtroom trial reports have also appeared on an almost daily basis on the
British Broadcasting Corp. website at http://news.bbc.co.uk/  All previous
BBC pages about the trial are bookmarked at that site along with the newest
coverage, or it can be retrieved using the BBC web site's internal search
engine. The content is rich in graphics and features photos of Irving and
Lipstadt.

The Guardian and Observer have established a special online section of
coverage about the trial http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/irving/  All
coverage by these two papers, usually every day the trial is in session, is
available at this site.  It also offers a special text-only web page for
each high graphics version making for easy download or printing. The
Guardian's  includes special graphics, and features guest writers like
Holocaust historian David Cesarani, who also wrote a special column on the
trial for the TIMES of London. Access to the Guardian is free, but
registration is required.

The Electric Telegraph has a searchable archive of all of its extensive
trial coverage.  Access is free, but registration is required at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ Use the paper's search engine to find the
paper's coverage of the trial.  The Telegraph has covered the trial on a
regular basis since it started on January 11th.  Searching the site on
"Lipstadt" will retrieve all the paper's coverage to date.

The Times of London has provided daily coverage of the trial by reporters
Tim Jones, Michael Horsnell, and others.  The TIMES coverage is widely used
by newspapers in Canada.  UK coverage has also appeared in the Independent,
Financial Times, London Times, and the Scotsman, Ediburgh. Until recently
the Irish Times carried regular coverage by its reporter Rachel Donnelly.
For the past few weeks the Irish Times has relied on wire service reports.
The Independent has a graphics intensive site with stunning and beautiful
images, but finding clips about the trial using its search engine is not
easy.  The Scotsman has published coverage from the courtroom about once a
week since the trial began.

http://www.the-times.co.uk/
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/
http://www.ireland.com/
http://www.independent.com.uk/
http://www.ft.com/
http://www.scotsman.com/

--- Television

Television coverage in the U.S. so far has been limited to a single
broadcast by CNN in its "CNN & Time" program aired Sunday 01/16/00 at 2100
HRS EST. A full transcript of the program can be found at
http://cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0001/16/impc.00.html Otherwise, CNN relied on
Reuters for its coverage of the 1st week of the trial.  As of 02.11.00 none
of the major US network evening news programs or prime time news shows have
covered the trial.

A brief mention of the release of the Eichmann diaries was made on the CBS
network evening news on 02.28.00.

--- Print Media Editorials & Comments

By far the most substantive analyses of the trial have been in extended
columns in the newspapers or in magazines.

The Atlantic Magazine issue for February 2000 features a major piece on the
trial by D.D. Guttenplan a former Newsday reporter now based in London.  The
February issue is on newstands now, and it is also online in four parts.
This is the cover story with profiles of the author and the magazine's
interest in the trial within as well as the  article itself at
http://www.theatlantic.com/  The cover story is titled "Holocaust on Trial,"
and in a sub-head calls to the the readers' attention "In a suit in Great
Britain a writer with disturbing views makes historical truth the
defendant."  Guttenplan has been interviewed about the trial on US National
Public Radio (below) and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.  He is writing a
book about the trial.

John MacArthur, the publisher of Harper's cites Guttenplan in a guest "op
ed" essay published in the Toronto Globe & Mail on 02.05.00  Then turning to
his own views he writes about Irving's suit with, as Mark Twain would say, a
pen warmed up in hell.  "At best this is the voice of a crank and political
provacateur, at worst that of a Nazi propagandist."
http://www.globeandmail.com/

U.S. News & World Report has a thought piece on 01.24.00 about the trial
titled "Debating Degrees of Evil," by Thomas K, Grose at
http://www.usnews.com/  A second retrospective review of the trial was
co-written by Grose, with reporter Jay Tolson, and posted on USN&WR web site
on 02.05.00 for the print edition of 02.14.00.  Also citing Guttenplan's
Atlantic article they ask rhetorically whether the public cares what passes
for a standard of historical accuracy.  Only the briefest of notices about
the trial have appeared so far in Newsweek and Time.

The Christian Science Monitor http://www.csmonitor.com/ ran an "op ed" piece
on 02.02.00 by Prof. Gerald DeGroot, the chairman of the department of
modern history, Unviersity of St. Andrews, Scotland.  He wrote, "A British
libel court is the last place on earth to look for truth."  This is the
first notice of the trial by CSM.

Neal Ascherson, a writer for the Observer http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/
asks on 02.06.00 "whether David Irving and Joerg Hairder have much in
common?"  He answers, "Irving is a genuine maverick," but Haider, he writes,
"is a cool, shrewd, postmodern politican."  Haider resigned his post as head
of the Freddom Party in Austria 02.29.00.  The heat from the European Union,
14 countries in all who froze bilateral relations with Austria, got too be
too much and he left the kitchen, and that's mixed metaphor to be sure.

Slate, an online magazine funded by Microsoft http://www.slate.com/ ran an
article on 01.24.00 in the "Culturebox Column" by critic Judith Shulevitz on
the writings of Kevin MacDonald, an "evolutionary psychologist" from
California State University, Long Beach, CA. MacDonald testified for Irving
at the trial on 01.31.00.  Several of the UK newspapers covered this portion
of the proceedings.  For his part MacDonald fired back online by posting his
replies at Slate's site.

The issue raised by Shulevitz is whether other members of the "evolutionary
psychology" profession, who do not share MacDonald's views about Jews, own
an obligation to address them.  Shulevitz asks if MacDonald arrived at views
which are regarded as anti-Semitic, using methods widely understood as being
credible in the field, what does that say about the field itself.  As
expected, the online discussion about "finge academics" at Slate mushroomed
and elsewhere on the Internet. It has attained noteriety with outside media
notice by LA Times syndicated columnist Suzanne Fields who wrote on 02.02.00
"Neo-Nazis have short memories."  See the "Internet Lists" section below for
new developments from MacDonald.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft, a UK writer, has published two articles about the trial
and public perceptions about the Holocaust.  On 01.27.00 he wrote in the
Guardian quoting the late Chaim Bermant that ..."Holocaust museums ...
[have] a perverse view of Jewish experience, perpetuates Jewish fears, and
has a pernicious effect on Jewish life."  An added flip comment by
Wheatcroft about "Holocaust chic," that confused MTV fashion statements with
the Final Solution, generated a spate of protest letters from readers.
Wheatcroft, possibly realizing he'd gone over the top with that remark,
returned to the theme of the Holocaust in a column published 02.05.00 in the
National Post, Toronto, CA, calling the trial an "agonizing and odious
controversy." http://www.nationalpost.com/

Thomas Friedman, a columnist for the NY Times, wrote on 02.08.00 about
Syria's offical newspaper calling the holocaust a "myth" at the height of
the peace talks with Israel at the same time Austria brought a neo-Nazi to
power.  He said these two events "have a lot in common," and he tossed them
into the same pot with the Irving libel suit.  "History," wrote Friedman,
"has a weight, and lifting it always has a price. Nobody gets into the 21st
century for free."

To illustrate just how far and wide the reach of this trial is consider a
long column published 02.10.00 by author Allan Levine in the Winnipeg,
Manitoba, CA, Free Press.  Levine also links the election of Austria's Joerg
Haider with Irving's lawsuit.  Levine said that both men could be dismissed
as cranks, but to do so would "be a grave mistake." http://205.200.192.20/
And in a corner of the midwest the Toledo, OH, Daily Blade editorialized on
02.13.00 "Win or lose Mr. Irving has found a forum for himself in a London
courthouse." http://www.toledoblade.com/

The Pittsburgh Post Gazaette http://www.post-gazette.com/ has published two
editorials.  The first on 01.22.00 by Dennis Roddy links Irving to US white
supremacist David Duke.  The second for 02.24.00 is an unsigned editorial
which reprints portions of an editorial that first appeared in the Toledo,
OH, Blade.

Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic Magazine, wrote on 01.17.00 that the
trial "tests the limits of free speech," and argued against laws that make
"Holocaust denial" a crime.  http://www.skeptic.com/

Jonathan Freedland, a columnist for the Guardian, wrote on 02.05.00 "can
truth and justice survive an onslaught of such denials?"  Lyn Gardner, also
a writer for the Guardian, published a column 02.09.00 on the impact of
bigotry and hatred in children's songs and stories.  The article was
prompted by the fact that David Irving was accused during the trial of
racism over a song he used to sing to his baby daughter.

Martin Mears, a leader in the UK legal community, wrote in the Times London
http://www.the-times.co.uk/ on 02.12.00, "the spirit of intolerance has no
room for the notion that that the truth is mighty and will prevail or that
bad ideas are best defeated not by penalties and prosecution but by the
force of better ideas."

Waldo Proffitt,the former editor of the Sarasota, FL, Herald Tribune
http://www.newscoast.com/ wrote bluntly on 02.17.00 ,"Nearly all the people
of my generation think anybody who denies the reality of the Holocaust is
either off their rocker or grossly prejudiced against Jews."

Frank Mclynn, a columnist for the Glasgow, Scotland, Herald http://www.the
herald.co.uk/ writes on 02.24.00 "as the David Irving case show, the
Holocaust remains a battlefield for historians."

A defense of David Irving appeared in the far east.  Publishing in the Korea
Herald on 02.25.00, http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/ former British diplomat
Robin Crompton writes, "However unwelcome Irving's conclusions, whatever his
private convictions, he has a right to publish, whoever's ox is gored."

--- U.S. Newspapers

Opening day U.S. coverage of the trial from London included the New York
Times, http://www.nytimes.com/ Los Angeles Times,http://www.latimes.com/ and
Chicago Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/  The New York Daily News,
considered by some to be a tabloid, shifted gears carrying a long and
serious article by Ellen Tumposky on 01.16.00 http://www.nydailynews.com/

The Chicago Tribune, like the other major papers, had been silent since the
11th of January, the opening day, but then published a major update on
01.25.00 and again printed another long article on 02.04.00.  All three
'Trib reports are by Ray Mosely direct from the courtroom.  The Times
Picayune, New Orleans, and other papers, have published condensed versions
of Mosely's reports.

In the U.S. the Atlanta Constitution began covering the trial with in-depth
reports from London-based correspondent Bert Roughton, Jr. These can be
found at http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/ Atlanta is Lipstadt's
home town where she teaches at Emory University http://www.emory.edu/
Roughton's reports have been supplemented by wire service reports and have
also been republisehd in other Cox newspapers.

These and many other stories were blasted off the Atlanta paper's pages by
the combination of unseasonable snow and ice storms in America's deep south
arriving simultaneously with the occasion of the Superbowl championship
football game held in that city 01.30.00.

Two weeks later on 02.14.00, in response to a reader's complaint about the
continuing lack of coverage, an editor responded in that day's edition that
the trial was not newsworthy.  The editor wrote that reports by Roughton
would be printed "when developments warrant coverage."  The paper kept its
word publishing nothing until 02.28.00 when wire service reports were used
to cover the release of the Eichmann papers.

Many US papers are relying on wire service copy including the Memphis
Commercial Appeal, Minneapolis St. Paul Pioneer, Ft. Worth Telegram,
Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the New Orleans Times Picayune, among many
others. Most of it is sandwiched in with other world news.

--- LA Times Reports & Retracts

The LA Times coverage of the trial, reported by Kim Murphy of that paper,
and published 01/07/00, generated a bitter response in the Jewish community
in Southern California.  The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles ran three special
articles on 01.14.00 criticizing the LA Times story including one by noted
Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum and another by the Journal's
editor-in-chief.  Berenbaum called the LA Times article "misleading,
inaccurate, distored, and uninfomed reporting,." and that was just the
headline. http://www.jewishjournal.com/cover.berenbaum.1.14.0.htm

Journal editor Gene Lichtenstein wrote that the LA Times coverage "inflamed
some members of LA's Jewish community."
http://www.jewishjournal.com/gene.1.14.0.htm   No other US coverage has
attracted such a negative or strong response.

On 01.31.00 the LA Times printed a five paragraph retraction of its coverage
of 01.07.00.  The Times' editors said the original story had factual errors.
  Jewish Journal editor Gene Lichtenstein commented in an editorial printed
02.04.00 on the Times' retraction and again on the original article.
Overall, he said, "it was not a stellar performance."
http://www.jewishjournal.com/gene.2.4.0.htm

--- Voices

National Public Radio (Real Audio required to hear these programs)

National Public Radio (NPR) reported live on 01.11.00 from outside the
courtroom on opening day of the trial. Irving has made himself available to
the press at will, but Lipstadt, on advice of her lawyers, has made very few
comments to the press, and all were taken before the trial got underway.
http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnps05fm.cfm?SegID=69035

D.D. Guttenplan, author of the February 2000 cover story in the Atlantic
about the trial, was interviewed by NPR on 02.04.00.  He says the trial has
been moved twice to successively larger courtrooms due to the growing press
gallery and that Irving plays to it as much to the judge presiding in the
case. http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnps05fm.cfm?SegID=69996

--- Internet Lists

	Repose of Medieval Historians Disturbed by a Modern One

In what has to be a curious sideshow to the trial, plaintiff David Irving
got involved in an online shoving match with a group of academics who are
medieval historians.  Posting on the mediev-l list hosted by the University
of Kansas, Irving accused historian Gordon Fisher, and others, of
criticizing him behind his back.
http://www.ukans.edu/~medieval/melcher/20000201/msg00302.html

This set off a cascade of messages pro-and con about Irving, his virtual
time travel from modern to medieval history, and an accusation of
"cowardice" made against Irving for allegedly threatening one of the
academics with legal action in a private email note.  An exasperated list
moderator finally got the message traffic under control and returned to its
charter.  For the moment, Irving is not in Kansas anymore.

	Kevin MacDonald Flip Flops on Anti-Semitism

In another bizarre twist to the case, and the Slate discussion noted above,
Kevin MacDonald got back on the Internet on 02.28.00 on a moderated
discussion list about anti-Semitism.  In it he said given Irving's
perceptions that attacks on him by Jews result from a "Jewish agenda, Irving
would be an anti-Semite in the stereotyping sense."  MacDonald had testified
at the trial that it was his view that Irving was NOT an anti-Semite.
MacDonald went on to write in his email note of the 28th, "In that case I
guess I should amend my testimony."

Readers can view MacDonald's complete message at the logs of the
H-Antisemitism discussion group:
http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=lm&list=h-antisemitism
Message of Feb 28, 2000: "Defining antisemitism [MacDonald]"

	The Discovery of Helen Darville - a Side Show in Two Parts
	
Sometime during the second week of the trial one Chas Stavros using the
email address of stavros@woofs.dircon.co.uk wrote online in the Usenet
discussion group alt.revisonism offering the as yet unpublished reports of
an Australian named Helen Darville.  He also wrote to me.  Stavros said
Darville was an Australian journalist from a major paper in Sydney.  Stavros
also posted four polished essays about the trial in alt.revisonism on
02.22.00.

It turns out Darville had worked as a journalist, but lost her column in the
Courier Mail, Brisbane, in 1996 after taking material from the Internet and
claiming it was hers.  Darville's literary ambitions had earlier come to
grief after her prize winning autobiographical novel "The Hand that Signed
the Paper" published in Australia in 1994 turned out to a hoax.  She is not
Ukranian and had no relatives involved in the Holocaust.  Her former editor
at the Courier Mail told the Vancouver Sun in January 1996 Darville holds
extreme right wing views and is anti-Semitic.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency on 03.01.00 described Darville's book, written
under the name Helen Demidenko, as "a fictionalized oral history of how the
Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves due to their mistreatment of
Ukranians . . . After an inquiry into the writer's background it was learned
that Darville had taken "Demidenko" from a real perpetrator of one of the
most notorious incidents in the Holocaust, the massacre at Babi Yar."

The significance of all this is that Darville was in fact in London this
winter masquerading in the Irving / Lipstadt court press gallery as a
working journalist.  She did have a freelance contract with the Australian
Style Magazine, but was not confirmed to be a credential carrying journalist
on the staff of the Australian newspaper, one of Sydney's largest papers.
There is a big difference between the two.

Once her presence in the courtroom was known it caused an uproar in
Australia.  The Sydney Morning Herald took the extraordinary action of
publishing a critique of Darville's expected article two days ** before **
it was published in Australian Style Magazine.  The 'OP ED' piece by
political commentator Robert Manne took her to task for her sympathy for
David Irving's position.  Titled "Tears for David Irving," it was also
posted on the Internet on 02.28.00 at
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0002/28/features/features1.html

D.D. Guttenplan, the author of a major article about the trial published in
the Atlantic in February 2000, is covering the trial end-to-end for a book
he is writing about it.  He said in an email to me on 02.29.00 that he
became suspicious of who Darville was "after listening to her make bizarre
remarks about Richard Evans," the historian who testified for the defense.
Guttenplan estimated that by the time he talked to her Darville had been in
the court press gallery every day for about two weeks.  He said, "she knew
perfectly well who I was and also the names and affiliations of several
other people in the press section."  This included, he said, Eva Menasse,
who covers the trial for the Frankfurter Allgemeiebe Zeitung in Germany.

While Darville was posing as a journalist in London, Chas Stavros was at the
same time posting messages in alt.revisionism with details about
Guttenplan's forthcoming book about the trial which only could have come
from a chance conversation Guttenplan had with Darville.  Further, Stavros'
essays, presented as the work of a "6th Form" student, are much more likely
to be the work of a mature writer in terms of style and command of Holocaust
and the trial's legal issues.  Interestingly, Stavros' essays also mention
Eva Menasse's work.  Stavros said he talked to Guttenplan, but Guttenplan
says no "bright sixth former" did.  Either Stavros the British student is
really Darville the Australian novelist, or the two are in very close
communication.   Stavros denied any knowledge of Darville's controversial
background in response to an email inquiry from me on 02.27.00.  It's a
mystery that's likely to remain unsolved unless Darville tells us.

*** Search Engines

If you want to search for coverage of the trial on your own, here are some
suggested search engines to use.

NANDO TIMES  If you want free public access to press coverage, this is a
place to search for it http://www.nando.com/  The site offers free coverage
of news in the US, the world, entertainment, and sports. It has an excellent
search engine, and you can also search Usenet with it.

EXCITE at http://www.excite.com/ offers a news clipping service. It is free,
but registration is required before you can set up news tracking. The
performance of this free service with US papers is hit-or-miss.  It does
well with some sources, but not well at all with others.  Excite does a good
job of indexing the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the Jerusalem Post, and
Ha'aretz.

NORTHERN LIGHT at http://www.northernlight.com/ got off to a slow start
indexing the US and UK press.  Nothing showed up in its new, and apparently
still experimental, "Alert Service" for the first three weeks of the trial.
On 01.25.00 a stream of citations began to appear.  Many articles from the
UK press are included in the engine's "Special Collection," which can be
retrieved for free or for a fee of from $1-3 per article. Northern Light is
a good search engine for web-based material collecting "hits" from
newspapers covering the trial into topical folders which makes reviewing
your results much easier.

SNAP at http://www.snap.com/ offers a European news page.  You still have to
search the individual sites, but at least it organizes the URLs for you.
Many European news media are relying on Reuters in the UK as well as the
French and German wire services.

LYCOS offers an alternative web browser called Neoplanet at
http://www.neplanet.com/ which encodes many web sites in the news category
and has a remarkably efficient news web crawler, at Lycos
http://www.lycos.com/ for turning up clippings on the trial.  Neoplant uses
the Microsoft Internet Explorer graphics engine to run, so you have to
istall that software first to make it [Neoplanet] work.

COPERNIC is commercial software that crawls the web, and can hit most US and
UK news web sites.  You can download a free trial version, with limited
fucntions, at http://www.copernic.com/ The full version is a mere $30(US).
It can be used to check the major dailies in the US each morning, and major
online news sites later in the day.  It depends on the dailies for their
indexes, so try searching on "holocaust" rather than "Lipstadt" or "Irving"
to get the best results.

BULLSEYE is free software that crawls the web and  successfully hits most US
news wire services as well as some UK web sites. You can download a fully
functional version (V.2.0) from http://www.intelliseek.com/  A "professional
version" is expected in the future.

Summary: no search engine or meta web crawler is substitute for going to
each major media web site and checking it directly.

###


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