"What if America wasn't America?" That was the question posed by a series of ads broadcast in the wake of the September 11th attacks, ads which depicted a dystopian America bereft of liberty: Library - Diner - Church. Together with more positive ads like Remember Freedom and I Am an American, they encouraged frightened viewers to cherish their freedoms and defend against division and prejudice in the face of terrorism (seven years previously). The campaign was the work of the Ad Council, a non-profit agency that employs the creative muscle of volunteer advertisers to raise awareness for social issues of national importance. Founded during WWII as the War Advertising Council, the organization has been behind some of the most memorable public service campaigns in American history, including Rosie the Riveter, Smokey the Bear, McGruff the Crime Dog, and the Crash Test Dummies. And the Council is still at it today, producing striking, funny, and above all effective PSAs on everything from student invention to global warming to arts education to community service.

Additional resources: A-to-Z index of Ad Council campaigns - Campaigns organized by category - Award-winning campaigns - PSA Central: A free download directory of TV, radio, and print PSAs (registration req'd) - An exhaustive history of the Ad Council [46-page PDF] - YouTube channel - Vimeo channel - Twitter feed
posted by Rhaomi on Sep 11, 2009 - 69 comments

I guess the media does have some good qualities after all. Yesterday was 9/11. Much of the media spend the day remembering what took place a year ago. A local pop radio station here in Pittsburgh B94 did something a little different. Yes they did the remembering but they also did something that went along the lines of "going about our business". They organized a little something called Operation Jumpstart Pittsburgh. They collected faxed and emailed resumes and hooked people up with companies that were hiring on the spot. It's nice to see the media doing something constructive for a change. I just wonder if anyone else might have some information about things that media outlets in other cities might have done like this.
posted by whirlwind29 on Sep 12, 2002 - 5 comments

S-11 Redux: (Channel) Surfing the Apocalypse So, in the face of our media's shameless propaganda campaign, we have taken it upon ourselves to intuit what the intentions and goals of this war truly are. In what is surely a departure from our traditional NewsVideo format, GNN presents S-11 Redux: (Channel) Surfing the Apocalypse. Culled from over 20 hours of television footage recorded over a one month period and across 13 networks, S-11 Redux is a sound-bite blitzkrieg that challenges the messages we have been fed from our mainstream media and the government it serves. Be warned - this video moves quickly and will require at least two viewings to digest its full impact. You may never be able to look at the coverage of S-11 and its post-impact coverage the same way, ever again
posted by Niahmas on Dec 24, 2001 - 31 comments

Daily comic strips have started to react to the attacks. The only two I noticed in today's paper were Fox Trot and The Boondocks. Their tones are, predictably, somber. The one comic I'd expect to have something to say, Doonesbury, is still stuck on an older storyline. Have other strips referenced September 11?
posted by sandor on Sep 24, 2001 - 26 comments

Palestinian leaders try to repair image includes threats to media. Palestinian Cabinet Secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman called international news agencies and said the safety of their staff could not be guaranteed unless they withdrew the embarrassing footage of Palestinian celebration of the carnage in New York.
posted by semmi on Sep 14, 2001 - 0 comments

Sorry but it's a little too late to muzzle this beast. The Palestinian Authority tries to stop press coverage of post-bombing celebrations (sorry if this has already been posted).
posted by estopped on Sep 13, 2001 - 19 comments