BOB GARFIELD: When the Nobel Prizes were awarded this week in Stockholm, the prize for medicine went to Paul C. Lauterbur of the University of Illinois and Sir Peter Mansfield of the University of Nottingham for their contributions to magnetic resonance imaging. Not receiving the award was a third and possibly earliest pioneer of the technology, Dr. Raymond Damadian. Incensed at his exclusion, Damadian has been waging a campaign in the pages of American and British newspapers -- a campaign in the form of full page ads, paid for out of his pocket, contesting the Nobel Committee's decision as a, quote, "shameful" rewrite of history. As an advertiser, not a story subject, he had absolute control of the message -- if not the effect. In that, says Marc Rosenberg, manager of public policy advertising at the Washington Post, Damadian has much in common with the growing number of paying crusaders.

MARC ROSENBERG: What makes it unusual is the repetition -- the number of ads that he's run. We've certainly has other individuals who have taken out paid advertising to express their views. Recently, Sean Penn, Yoko Ono; couple of years ago Larry Flynt from Hustler magazine -- all of them were one-time ads. What makes Damadian's campaign unique is the number of times he has come into the paper, and it points up the ability to use advertising to keep the message out there in front of the public, beyond the one time press release.

BOB GARFIELD:When we think of advocacy advertising, I think we tend to think of stuff like Harry and Louise, the fictional couple who spoke for the insurance lobby during the health care debate, or maybe Herb Schmertz's weekly column-like ads in major newspapers paid for by Mobil Oil. But the personal crusades are a different matter. Is there one that has been more successful than others?

MARC ROSENBERG: Recently Sean Penn got a great deal of secondary publicity from his open letter to the president before the war in Iraq. Larry Flynt, during the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton, ran an ad in the Washington Post on the issue of congressional infidelity and had not just a huge response from the public, but ran a couple of members of Congress out of office with [LAUGHS] the results of that ad.

BOB GARFIELD:Representative Bob Livingston resigned from his seat in Congress and never even got to fill the position of Speaker of the House to which he'd been elected by his colleagues after the Flynt ad ran.

MARC ROSENBERG: That's correct. That's, you know, probably the, the clearest cause and effect example we can give you. We were deluged with telephone calls from all over the United States calling the advertising department at the Washington Post saying that they had heard about this ad and they needed to know what the 800 number was so that they could come forward and claim their reward from Larry Flynt for their evidence of congressional activities. It got to a point where eventually Flynt's people called us and said, you know, would you please stop giving out that phone number, because there's more people coming forward than we can investigate at this point.

BOB GARFIELD:Dr. Damadian was obviously an unusually persistent personal advocacy advertiser. But have you noticed an increase over the last few years in the number of individuals who are fighting their battles this way?

MARC ROSENBERG: Well there's been an increase across the board in all kinds of public policy advertising, by organizations as well as individuals. I think the reason for that is that the news hole has gotten much tighter. Large newspapers tend to devote extensive space to the big stories of the day, and if you're not the top story of the day, it's harder and harder to get into that paper.

BOB GARFIELD:So now that Raymond Damadian has spent something in the neighborhood of a million dollars to be recognized by the Nobel Committee -- and, and failed -- will you mention his name to the next person to walk into your office with an insertion order and an axe to grind?

MARC ROSENBERG: I would say that if we mention Dr. Damadian's name and the next advertiser said, oh, that's the guy that had the complaint about the Nobel Prize Committee, I'd say he'd been pretty successful, because had he not run these ads, nobody would have ever heard of him.

BOB GARFIELD: All right. Well, Marc, thanks very much.

MARC ROSENBERG: It's been a pleasure.

BOB GARFIELD: Marc Rosenberg is manager of public policy advertising for the Washington Post.