The Tennessean is investigating how a full-page ad from a fringe religious group with a “Bible prophecy” made it into Sunday’s print edition.
The ad, attributed to the Ministry of Future for America, claimed “Islam” will “detonate a nuclear device” next month in Nashville and send the world into World War III.
The Tennessean published a statement that said the ad violated “long-established standards” and was “immediately ordered to be pulled from future editions by sales executives.” The outlet said a similar ad that also contained an “end-times prophesy” but did not mention Islam was published in the newspaper on June 17.
Kevin Gentzel, president of marketing solutions and the chief revenue officer for Gannett, the parent company of the Tennessean, condemned the advertisement in a tweet on Sunday.
“Two ads ran this week in the Tennessean that clearly violate our advertising standards,” Gentzel wrote. “We strongly condemn the message and apologize to our readers. We are immediately investigating to determine how this could have happened.”
The Tennessean post about the ads said that the newspaper’s advertising standards “clearly forbid hate speech.”
This morning, the Nashville @Tennessean — the largest newspaper in the state — published a full-page ad from a far-right client warning “Islam is going to detonate a nuclear device in Nashville, Tennessee.” It’s accompanied by photos of Donald Trump and Pope Francis. pic.twitter.com/9vvUbteSIh
— Alex Martin Smith (@asmiff) June 21, 2020
The Tennessean’s local sales leader, Ryan Kedzierski, the vice president of sales for Middle Tennessee, also apologized.
“The advertisement that was placed within the Tennessean is not what we condone or stand for within our advertising department guidelines and procedures,” Kedzierski said.
“This advertisement should not have been published within The Tennessean and we are sincerely sorry that this mistake took place. We are extremely apologetic to the community that the advertisement was able to get through and we are reviewing internally why and how this occurred and we will be taking actions immediately to correct,” he added, saying the paper would be donating the revenue made from the ad to the American Muslim Advisory Council.
