Some professionals in the advertising world should take responsibility for their actions, as well as their words. As members of the mass media, it’s the least they owe to the public, who is oh-so-often subjected to their frequently misguided messages.

The news media’s messages are heard on the radio waves, visualized through the television screen or read from the printed page and it is constantly held responsible for words and actions that go astray. And so it should be.

The advertising media should be held responsible, too.

The basic function of both media is to inform the public. To do so, the public’s attention first must be captured. Media students learn in their basic courses how to attract the attention of the public. The most effective methods (not necessarily the best) play on the public’s interests in money, sex and blood.

It seems sometimes the only way the media reaches the public is through shock value—something different, out-of-the ordinary or offensive. It is at times a test of the public’s limits for taste.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes the public attention attracted is negative—very negative.

As I flipped through last week’s issue of Newsweek, I saw an article about an ad that had run in the print media, advertising television’s evening soap “Dynasty.” I glanced at it and continued flipping pages, but the further away I turned, the more I thought about the ad and the more insulting it became.

The ad lacked tact and subtlety and was more insulting to a reader’s intelligence than it was humorous.

The ad pictured three of the show’s leading ladies and a caption on top that read, “Bitch, Bitch, Bitch.”

As I read the article I found that I was definitely not the only person who had been offended, to say the least.

It seems that the Minnesota-based ad firm, Fallon McElligott not only insulted one Neala Schleuning with their ad, but also with their responses to her objections to the ad.

It seems the whole escapade into tactlessness and irresponsibility in the world of advertising began when Schleuning wrote to the firm objecting to the ad and what she termed “negative stereotypes of women” reflecting the agency’s interest in perpetuating a “male-gonad style of management.”

Well, let’s just say that there might have been better ways of getting her point across. This method only evoked an even more incensing rebuttal to her objections and accusations.

A member of a Fallon McElligott subsidiary, The Duffy Design Group, sent Schleuning a reply thanking her for the input and suggesting she might make better use of her time with a “rather barbaric ritual performed by the Dinka Tribe of East Africa.” The message was sent along with a photo of a naked Dinka boy pressing his mouth against a cow’s hindquarters.

O.K. so the score was about even then, but Schleuning didn’t consider the game to be quite over. In response she called in the troops from the Minnesota Woman’s Consortium, who in turn sent a letter to the big guys, Patrick Fallon and Thomas McElligott.

Not wanting to feel left out of the fun and games, Fallon offered “to pay half of Schleuning’s expenses to Africa or full expenses one way,” and McElligott sent a mosquito net, a pith helmet and a note which read, “While last week you may have been just a strange, anonymous person whose amusing letter entertained 150 people around the company bulletin board, today you are our brave missionary to the Dinkas.”

To wind up the whole battle, Schleuning and her Minnesota women began to tattle on Fallon and McElligott by sending copies of the letter to the firm’s list of top clients. What else could Fallon and McElligott do but apologize?

Unfortunately, there is no apology good enough for their lack of responsibility and professionalism.