Unethical Solicitation of Advertising Is Condemned; NCRAC Demands End of Scheme Responding to the protests of the American Association - of English-Jewish Newspapers against the unethical practices of some periodicals which have been clipping advertisements from local publications and soliciting for them through direct billings, the National Community Relations Advisory Council has held a number of conferences with responsible parties and has issued a statement call- % ing for an end to the unsavory practice. The NCRAC statement, signed by Isaiah Minkoff, exe- cutive direct9r, reads: Early in August, the NCRAC was requested by 'the American Association of English - Jewish newspapers to take cognizance of a situation involving alleged unethical practices by four na- tional Jewish publications in soliciting advertisements by mail for their special Rosh Has- honah editions. Since then, our attention has been called to a fifth national publication which has also engaged in the same practice. On August 24th a committee of the NCRAC, comprised of representatives from the Amer- ican Jewish Committee, Amen- ,, can Jewish Congress, Anti-De- ' faillation League of Bnai Brith, Jewish Labor Committee, Jewish War Veterans, Union of Ameri- can Hebrew of the NCRAC, met with a representative of the American Association of Eng- lish-Jewish Newspapers. By the date of the meeting, additional inquiries and complaints had been received by the NCRAC from a number of communities, in some of which advertisers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, h a d complained to the local Better Business Bureau. The practice complained of consists of solicit- ing advertising by mail in such a manner as to give prospective advertisers the erroneous im- preSsion that they were being asked to renew an old ad rather than being solicited for the first time. Specifically, this was done by clipping advertisements which had appeared . in various publications including the Eng- lish-Jewish p r e s s; attaching these advertisements to a bill of the soliciting publication; and sending the bill with the sug- gestion that the bill was sent "to save time and administra- tive expense of separate bill- ing." Neither the bill nor the covering letter of solicitation made any reference to the fact that the attached ad was taken from another publication. It was the unanimous view of the NCRAC Committee that this method of solicitation Was clear- ly unethical. Therefore, and in order to prevent a public scan- dal which was imminent if this practice should continue, it was agreed that this Matter should be discussed by the NCRAC with the offending publications. In view of the fact that this 4 ".11.-situation had received publicity in the general as well as the Anglo-Jewish press, a public statement was released by the NCRAC on Aug. 25 as follows: "Irk the interests of the total Jewish community,. the National Community Re- lations Advisory Council has taken cog- nizance of the issue of the alleged un- 36—THE JEWISH NEWS Friday, December 8, 1950 "....11 ethical practice by Jewish publications in the securing of advertisements. "On Wednesday, Aug. 24, a committee of the NCRAC met with representatives of the American Association of English- Jewish Newspapers and at an early date will similarly confer with officials of publications concerned with this problem." Subsequently, NCRAC repre- sentatives conferred with the of- fending publications. The NCR- AC is happy to state that it was received by these publications in a spirit of friendly coopera- tion. All acknowledged the un- ethical nature of the practice into which they had been mis- led and, in keeping with their reputations as responsible Jew- ish publications under equally re s ponsible individual and or- ganizational sponsorship, v o 1 - untarily offered to discontinue the practice and gave assurances that thei offense would never again be repeated. The NCRAC is satisfied that all of these highly reputable publications were the victims of one or two advertiging men who, either in ignorance or in dis- regard of the unethical charac- ter of the device, prevailed upon the publications to adopt this method of soliciting advertising by mail. The NCRAC is confi- dent that the publications will keep their promises not to en- gage in this practice in the future. T h e NCRAC is circulating copies of this letter to all na- tional Yiddish, Hebrew a n d English- Jewish publications 251 W. Lamed WOodward 5-2424 Iron & Steel Scrap 3730 Central VI. 2-6565-6-7 SUPPLY CO. 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