Ad Council, Born in War Propaganda, Flacks For Freedom

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The target="_blank">Ad Council, a non-profit advertising company funded by corporations, is launching an advertising "campaign for freedom" in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US. The New York Times notes that the Ad Council was launched in 1942 to propagandize for the US war effort. A Stay Free magazine interview with professor Inger Stole notes that the Ad Council bragged then it would target="_blank">"out Goebbel Goebbels." The New York Times article quotes media critic Mark Crispin Miller who "called the ads unfocused and exploitative. 'The campaign is inappropriate because these ads are not thought-provoking but emotionally manipulative. They are bits of rousing propaganda. What we need now in a time of terror is more information, more truth, more clarity of mind. The Ad Council is merely giving us a kind of feel-good blather for the nation's couch potatoes.' "