The following is a press release of the Armenian National Committee of America of 21 August 2000.

"CNN COVERS FAILED TURKISH EFFORT TO CENSOR MICROSOFT ENCARTA'S ENTRIES ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Moneyline Newshour Devotes Segment to Growing Controversy Over On-Line Encyclopedia

"The bottom line is that historical revisionism is bad business,"
-- CNN Moneyline Reporter Steve Young

Washington, DC -- CNN's Moneyline Newshour today reported on the growing controversy over recent attempts by the Turkish Governmentto pressure Microsoft to revise sections of their popular Encarta on-line encyclopedia to deny the Armenian Genocide, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA.)

According to a report filed by Moneyline correspondent Steve Young, Microsoft Encarta officials had received formal protests from the Turkish Embassy urging the revision of encyclopedia entries which describe as "genocide" Ottoman Turkey's systematic killing of the Armenian population of Eastern Anatolia during World War I.

Microsoft Encarta officials, in turn, asked Dr. Helen Fein, Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Genocide and University of Chicago Professor Ronald Suny - experts contracted to write Encarta's entries on "genocide" and "Armenia" - to revise these sections to cast doubt on the facts of the Armenian Genocide.

When Fein and Suny refused, Encarta researchers initially threatened to make the changes themselves.  Later, as the controversy became increasingly public and the level of protest against Turkey's pressure increased, they reversed their decision, agreeing only to include a note that the Turkish Government denies the Armenian Genocide.  A full transcript of the Moneyline segment…

The Turkish Government's pressure on Microsoft was first reported in an August 18th article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The ANCA, which learned of the issue through an advance copy of the Chronicle, circulated an action alert on August 15th calling on individuals and organizations to thank the Chronicle for breaking this story and encouraging Encarta to resist pressure to compromise its academic integrity under political or financial pressure."