Ad Council- Ads with Liberal Bias

I recently took an action on what I perceive to be a liberal effort to use free media to spread their politicized message. The organization is the People for the American Way (www.pfaw.org). Some of you may know this organization- we call it the People for the Soviet Way. They are very hostile to conservative causes- they actively oppose Christians and oppose school choice. They, in tandem with the NAACP, have created a group called the 'Partners for Public Education' which actively opposes school choice. 'Partners' has held seminars where they spread scare-tactics of what school choice would do to the poor, minorities, etc. Recently, they have partnered with the Ad Council to spread seemingly innocuous Public Service Announcements. The Ad Council is a non-profit, non-partisan organization which promotes social causes through unused advertising space. I wrote to the Ad Council to object to their promoting 'Partners' highly-politicized, partisan cause. The e-mail dialogue is as follows. It is somewhat promising and I will update you if there is any progress.

-- -----Original Message----- From: [My Name] Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 7:31 PM To: Comments Subject: People for American Way

The Ad Council's dissemination of advertisements for "People for the American Way" is inappropriate. PFAW is a highly controversial organization which invests money misrepresenting and defaming Christians. It has long been associated with the Democratic party and violates the principle of evenhandedness that is associated with the Ad Council. I would appreciate a response as to why the Ad Council is working with PFAW. Thank you.

-----Original Message----- From: Comments [mailto:Comments@AdCouncil.org] Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2003 7:00 AM To: [My Name] Subject: RE: People for American Way

The Partners for Public Education campaign, a partnership of the NAACP and People for the American Way Foundation, was developed to promote the message of parental involvement in their children's public school education and raise awareness of the benefits of this involvement. The campaign is targeted to African-American and Hispanic parents. The campaign features easy ways for parents to get involved in their children's education. The PSAs are non-partisan, like all Ad Council PSAs.

[Ad Council Employee Name] Website Editor The Advertising Council 212.984.1953 ----------- -----Original Message----- From: [My Name] Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2003 4:23 PM To: Comments Subject: RE: People for American Way

While I appreciate your response, it is obvious that you are not fully informed of the partisan nature of the "Partners for Public Education" campaign. I refer you to an article in Salon.com, an online news site at the following URL: http://www.salon.com/sept97/news/news970930.html . The article states, "Working with the liberal lobbying group People for the American Way, the NAACP has been building a coalition of labor, education and ministerial groups dubbed Partners for Public Education. Vouchers, NAACP president Kweisi Mfume has contended, are 'a concept of exclusion and selective opportunity propounded by the far right wing. Today (Sept. 30), Partners for Public Education is holding a day of rallies and workshops in Philadelphia, one of its biggest anti-voucher events yet." School choice is an imporant matter to conservatives and Christians. Partners for Public Education is a partisan organization that has been set up to oppose school choice. The fact that the PSA's emphasize public schools and not private schools is an example of their political bias. The debate over school choice is highly politicized and not one that the Ad Council should take a side on. Therefore, I request that the Ad Council remove these ads on the basis that they are being used in support of a highly controversial and partisan political campaign. I would appreciate that you forward this request to the appropriate individual(s) at the Ad Council. Thank you.

Though our campaign may share the same name as the activist group, the PSAs have nothing to do with lobbying, rallying, or campaigning. They simply encourage parents to get involved in their children's education.

May I invite you to view the PSAs on our website. http://www.adcouncil.org/campaigns/Partners_For_Public_Education/

They aren't violating their policy. There isn't any partisanship to the ads and they have nothing to do with lobbying, rallying, or campaigning. The ads are judged by their content and not the politics of the group making them. Conservatives could take advantage of this just as easily.

The ads promote the organization "Partners For Public Education". The advertisement itself is merely a trojan horse to increase the visibility of the organization, whose name and logo is on the screen of the advertisement. To ignore the immense promotional value generated by television advertising of this kind is simplistic. Liberals are clever. Judging by your response, some conservatives obviously are not.

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"Partners For Public Education" is an organization whose purpose is to recruit parents and gain influence into the operation of public schools. The site's purpose is to "educate" these parents in why vouchers don't work and then express these views to the Board of Education and Parent Teacher conferences. Perfectly legal and acceptable practice. However, it's important to understand why the organization exists. It is a tandem effort of two lobbying groups- NAACP and People for the American Way. If you think their agenda is limited to parents involving themselves in their children's schoolwork, I have a bridge to sell you...

I wonder. I would wager real money that a conservative organization promoting a "non-political" position would have its ads pulled once the activist left pressured the Council.

And trust me, parental involvement isn't as non-political as it appears. When I was growning up, these self same [type of] education goons were touting something called "new math" based in set theory and stressing things like commutative and associative laws over 2+2. Back then they were actively urging parents NOT to become involved as they'd just muck things up. You know, let the experts handle things.

Today, there is a whole private industry selling phonics programs to parents whose kids can't read due to that whole word gibberish the edumorons thought up. They don't want parents doing that either. Believe me, these people are all politics all the time.

Parting question: how come phonics isn't spelled like it sounds?

We agree to disagree. I think that if the ad wasn't political in any way, that it would be allowed to air. The Ad Council knows that it needs support from the GOP in Congress and from the president. This ad is promoting something completely bipartisan and non-controversial: that parents need to stop ignoring what goes on with their kids for eight hours a day and be active in making sure their kids are behaving and learning.

Some conservative group could have done the same exact ad-- and in the interest of boosting minority appreciation for the GOP, they probably should have. This ad wasn't talking about how bad school choice was. They never even mention it. If the problem is that the ad gives credibility to the notion that public schools aren't socialist madrassas, well that's a battle we won't ever win and it's dumb to waste energy trying to close down every school in the country-- which some conservatives favor.

Public schools with all their warts are here to stay. I think it's important to try to make public schools function as well as possible because we are going to have to deal with the products of those schools, which is why I support things like school choice and vouchers and charter schools and teacher and student testing and character education and boosting parental involvement. Some conservatives look at public schools like liberals look at guns-- they are evil without redemption.

Again, you miss the point entirely. Rather than responding to my post, you simply reiterated your arguments about the contents of the PSA. I don't care about the contents of the PSA. The PSA content itself is merely a vehicle by which "Partners for Public Education" increases its visibility, whereby it can spread its anti school-choice message through other means. The issue is the publicity generated by their name and image in the advertisement and the subsequent interest in their organization. I don't think I need to respond to your strawman on "some conservatives want to eliminate public schooling" since that never was the point. To assume that two highly politicized liberal lobbying firms would come together to form an organization whose sole purpose is apolitical is beyond naive. The purpose, as "Partners" web site makes clear, is to assemble parents into a voting bloc against school choice. Could conservatives do this too? It depends. I would prefer that the Ad Council refuse to be used for political ends rather than promote a race to the bottom, in terms of both political parties seeking to use non-profits in this manner. If the Ad Council refuses, then responding in kind would be the only alternative.

It doesn't matter that these two groups came together to form a political and partisan unit. What matters is the ad's content which is not political, not partisan. That is how these ads are judged-- not by who made them.

It is a stretch to say that the Ad Council is being used for political ends. The only value that this group gets is favorable name ID. That is fair game. You aren't alleging that the favorable name ID is undeserved-- that this group really opposes boosting parental involvements in their children's educations. Just because they happen to also do some political work, it doesn't follow that all their work is political and should be disqualified.

Yes I am alleging that favorable name identification, which is often the principle purpose of advertising, is undeserved. That recognition tranlsates into interest and likely increased membership for the liberal lobbying group. The Ad Council should not reject ads based on the fact that the ads hail from a politicized organization, per-se. However, given the organization's partisan nature, such ads ought not serve as a Trojan Horse in building their name and membership. The Ad Council is not a mechanism for self publicity by partisan organizations. It is acceptable for the Ad Council to run these advertisements absent the liberal lobbying group name. If "Parterns" is sincere about their interest strictly being about parental involvement, they will have no qualms with removing their name from the advertisement.

Isn't it the fault of the sheeple if they pay dues or otherwise fund this group, but don't share their views on major issues like school choice? It isn't the Ad Council's job to teach people to have common sense and spend their money wisely.

Why should they remove their name? Undoubtedly a part of their agenda is supporting parental involvement in education-- even if it is a micro part. If parents are lead to do this and want guidance, there's nothing wrong with telling them to ask this group for more info.

I think your frustration is borne out of envy. I'm envious, too. Conservatives should use every tool available to help our causes.

The issue has nothing to do with the choices of the people watching the ad. The issue is the free publicity that a partisan organization is getting from a non-profit which claims to be non-partisan. It is simply a decision that the Ad Council will have to make. If they let their services be exploited for political advantage by left-wing groups intent on increasing their visibility, then yes, two can play at that game. If the Ad Council comes back and clarifies their policy, stating that indeed their airwaves can be hijacked by partisan organizations, then let the games begin. At that point, their commitment to "non-partisanship" will be tested by conservative organizations running similar Trojan Horse advertisements.

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