A number of prominent US journalists have signed a petition requesting that The Newspaper Association of America to publicly recognise that its predecessor The American Newspaper Publishers Association "was wrong to turn its back on Jewish refugee journalists fleeing Hitler."

The petition, based on research entitled "Rebuffing Refugee Journalists: The Profession's Failure to Help Jews Persecuted by Nazi Germany" conducted by former Wall Street Journal reporter Laurel Leff, emphasises the fact that other organisations have publicly apologised for past mistakes and asserts that the Newspaper Association should do the same.

Among the 70 people that signed the petition are Nicholas Lemann, of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, Leon Wieseltier of political magazine The New Republic and Marvin Kalb and Alex S. Jones, both of Harvard.

President of The Newspaper Association John F. Sturm confirmed that the organisation was giving "careful consideration" to the petition and would deal with it in a "constructive manner."

Source: The New York Times