MTV Entertainment Group is marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day with a public-service spot across all its brands. In a memo to staff Wednesday, group president Chris McCarthy wrote, “Today we stand with our Jewish colleagues, talent and audiences around the world to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day which the United National General Assembly designated to commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, 1945 and honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. As we were reminded on January 6th with the storming of the Capitol, we’ve seen an alarming rise of antisemitism and white supremacy over the past four years.”
The spot features a variation on the form of Martin Niemöller’s widely circulated post-World War II confessional “First They Came …” in which the speaker laments not opposing oppression of and violence against others before becoming the target of similar oppression and violence.
MTV Entertainment Group — which includes MTV, Comedy Central, VH1 and multiple other ViacomCBS brands — has, under McCarthy, regularly leveraged its platforms to raise awareness for social-justice issues. In June, the company’s cable channels went dark for 8 minutes and 46 seconds to mark the killing of George Floyd by police officers and express support for the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2018, those channels suspended programming for 17 minutes as high school students across the country participated in a national walkout to protest gun violence.
(Excerpt) Read more in: Variety