Taking a strong note of the ‘hiring’ advertisement published in Sunday edition of Greater Kashmir, the management at Greater Kashmir Communications (GKC) on Monday sacked two staffers and blacklisted the advertising agency which had placed the ad.
Earlier in the day, the Greater Kashmir management while taking full responsibility for the ‘inadvertent publication’ of the classified had clarified on the social media handles of the publication that the ‘hiring’ advert was placed by an advertising agency, namely Walnut Advertisers.
“We have put a disclaimer on all advertisements that our organisation is not responsible for contents or claims of any ads. Still we regret inadvertent publication of this classified. We apologize to our valued readers if the ad in any way caused inconvenience to our valued readers. We will ensure that such ads are not published in our paper in future,” the ads section of the newspaper had said in the clarification. “Besides, we are investigating further the contents of the ad with the advertising agency Walnut Ads.”
In the evening, the company said that they have blacklisted the advertising agency while also sacking its two employees responsible for verifying the advertisements before sending them for the print.
“We are deeply saddened with the issue. As a company that is very sensitive to the feelings of the society, we issued a clarification and took strong action against the advertising agency and our two staff members following an internal investigation,” said a management executive.