History Channel Rejects Confederate Veterans Ads

The Georgia Sons of Confederate Veterans organization is up in arms over the History channel’s decision not to run its ads promoting the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, or what the group calls “The War of Southern Independence.”

The group accused the cable network to succumbing to political correctness, according to a story by Rodney Ho at ajc.com.

According to a Morris News Service story:

The organization asserts that in seceding, Southern states were exercising a right that New England states had claimed since the country’s founding and that Confederates fought to defend that right when Union forces “invaded” to prevent secession.

The ads also argue that the South seceded partly because “northern congressmen were able to vote themselves virtually anything they wanted, using southern tax money, while the South was powerless to stop it.

Slavery? Not the primary issue and besides, the North trafficked heavily in slavery and profited from it more than the South, the group says in this video.

The History channel (apparently “channel” is no longer part of the name) in a statement says it does not allow such ads as a matter of policy:

History channel does not sell time for advertising that presents a partisan position on a controversial issue (of course we do accept ads from political candidates under the political advertising rules). We have confirmed that the ad was never pitched to A&E Television Networks (AETN), but to a local distributor who accepted the ad without AETN’s awareness or approval. We have informed them that the ad is outside the scope of our guidelines and may not be aired during any of our programming. AETN’s advertising guidelines, which are similar to those of other broadcast and cable networks, do not permit such an ad as explained above. Indeed, AETN is not aware of any other network who has accepted or aired the ad.To our knowledge, it is not currently running on any of our networks, including History.

The state division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has been running ads in various radio and TV outlets in Georgia including local stations in Atlanta and plans to do so for the next year, said Jack Bridwell, commander for the group, in an interview today.

Read more here.