The Atlantic magazine on Tuesday issued an apology for publishing a sponsored post touting the Church of Scientology’s accomplishments in the last year.
“We screwed up,” The Atlantic said in a statement. “It shouldn’t have taken a wave of constructive criticism — but it has — to alert us that we’ve made a mistake, possibly several mistakes. We now realize that as we explored new forms of digital advertising, we failed to update the policies that must govern the decisions we make along the way. It’s safe to say that we are thinking a lot more about these policies after running this ad than we did beforehand. In the meantime, we have decided to withdraw the ad until we figure all of this out. We remain committed to and enthusiastic about innovation in digital advertising, but acknowledge—sheepishly—that we got ahead of ourselves. We are sorry, and we’re working very hard to put things right.”
The Atlantic pulled the Scientology sponsored post after withering online criticism.
