Press Coverage of the Armenian Genocide and Mass Killings of 1890s-1920s

The 1915 Armenian Genocide was deliberately carried out by the Ottoman Empire in order to systematically exterminate the Christian communities of the Empire, including Armenians. The Genocide was also preceded by three waves of massacres of Armenians in the 1890s and 1900s, as well as the application of a discriminative policy.

Over those decades, the country wasn’t closed for the outer world. Since the 1890s and up until the doorstep of WWI, a number of large, prominent international agencies and media reported on the severe conditions of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. The news spread from Constantinople to London and New York, Paris and Saint Petersburg, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Washington, as well as other capitals, cities, and villages all over the world.

All those people learned about the atrocities faced by the Armenians and other Christians of Anatolia and Asia Minor thanks to “The Globe and Mail”, “The New York Times”, “The Times of London”, “The Los Angeles Times”, “The Washington Post”, “The Sydney Morning Herald”, “The Chicago Daily Tribune”, “The Independent”, and many other newspapers that were distributed in small trade centers in the whole world.

In regard to only 1915, “The New York Times” published an article titled “Appeals to Turkey to Stop Massacres” on April 28, 1915. On October 7, 1915, “The New York Times” published an article “800,000 Armenians Counted Destroyed”.  Another article named “The Assassination of a Race” was published by “The Independent” on October 18, 1915. Similar articles weren’t rare because the Armenian Genocide began during WWI and continued until the 1920s, which was a quite eventful era.

Apart from spotlighting political and diplomatic news, the media also supported the organization of humanitarian aid from all around the globe. Today, these sources are invaluable in terms of both the question of Genocides and the Armenian Genocide in particular.