Press agent

“ I have always lived in the open. It has not been necessary to press-agent myself. A good deal has been printed about me in the newspapers during the last twenty-five years, but if I have ever sought to exploit myself before the public by means of autobiographies or journalistic puffs, and it is so proved by any reputable newspaper, may I be shown up to public scorn. ”

“ Were reporting the simple recovery of obvious facts, the press agent would be little more than a clerk. But since, in respect to most of the big topics of news, the facts are not simple, and not at all obvious, but subject to choice and opinion, it is natural that everyone should wish to make his own choice of facts for the newspapers to print. The publicity man does that. And in doing it, he certainly saves the reporter much trouble, by presenting him a clear picture of a situation out of which he might otherwise make neither head nor tail. ”

“ The press agent, if conscientious, may contribute a valuable function. We ourself have worked as a free-lance Press Agent for George Fox, Sir Thomas Browne, Herman Melville, Thoreau, Lao-Tse, Pearsall Smith, and various other people who have seemed to us to have the Right Idea. ”

“ They do not take shape until somebody protests, or somebody investigates, or somebody publicly, in the etymological meaning of the word, makes an issue of them.
This is the underlying reason for the existence of the press agent. The enormous discretion as to what facts and what impressions shall be reported is steadily convincing every organized group of people that whether it wishes to secure publicity or to avoid it, the exercise of discretion cannot be left to the reporter. It is safer to hire a press agent who stands between the group and the newspapers. ”

“ Augustus Thomas is at work on a new play for Charles Frohman. The piece is to be called "The Jew," and will be produced in September.
That's the press agent!
He also designs bills, gets up circulars, sends out photographs, invents "fake stories", and takes the blame for whatever happens that shouldn't have happened. If you have several attractions you will need a press agent in New York and one with each company on the road. In the parlance of the profession, the road press agent is "the man ahead of the show," while the acting manager is "the man back with the [Pg 37] show." ”

“ Trained newspapermen are in active demand as publicity and general aids by big corporations. The salaries paid are larger than is paid by newspapers. These men usually oversee the advertising; likewise they write pamphlets, collect information for the use of the corporation, frequently prepare speeches for delivery by the officers, make out reports, read many publications for any information bearing on the business. The work requires fine editorial ability and thorough knowledge of the business. It is far above the press agent work done to advertise theaters, moving pictures, or hotels. ”

“ When Wealth walks in the Door, the Press Agent comes in through the Window. ”

“ The newspaper not endowed with an Associated Press franchise must wait for twenty-four hours or more for its copy of the document.
Hardly less important is the fact that in every city, town, and village in the country, the Associated Press has its agent—the local editor or the telegraph operator, or some one else—who is commissioned to report to it [303] every news happening that may arise within his bailiwick. Often these reports are interesting; sometimes they are of importance, and in either case the newspaper not allied with a press association must miss them. ”

“ Being chairman of the Press Committee, I employed a firm of press agents to get for us the maximum amount of publicity. As a result we received over ten thousand clippings from the papers of the United States alone. I do not mean to claim that the Congress would not have been extensively noticed without the deft work of the agents ”

“ While not inclined to argue this point, it is my humble judgment that the newspaper begins its existence the moment the managing editor opens his desk for the day’s work. He is its main-spring! Whatever of distinctive character it possesses in methods of handling the news of the day it owes to him, and it is these very features that render one journal better or worse than others. He it is, as a rule, who establishes the chivalry of the press toward the public. It is he who decides the line of attack or defense when the vast interests which he represents are assailed. ”

“ I have had no cause to regret my choice of a profession. I begin to feel the tremendous power wielded by the press in formulating public opinion, and am in a position to build up, by reflection upon what it is, a conception of what a newspaper should be, all of which I trust will enable me, when the time comes, to do my share in furthering the highest interests of the State and mankind in general. I have come to see where the dangers which surround the young newspaper man lie, and am endeavouring to keep myself free from their influence. ”

“ To solve these problems another group of men is needed, the reporters proper, called, when they are on this service, “general42 workers.” As the original brief messages come in to the city editor, he details one or another of his young men to the spot, who sets to work to ransack every fragment of fact or probability, which throws light on the case. If a general worker has to think only of a morning newspaper and the matter is important, he will try to treat it exhaustively and not return to the office, until he has his story complete and ready for the press. ”

“ Having been a journalist, he knew well the power of the press for good or evil, and that led him to the idealistic conception that he could render no better public service than by founding, or getting control of, a newspaper of absolute independence and outspokenness on public matters, one devoted to the discovery and advocacy of truth, regardless of party and of all other considerations, and with such recognized ability in editorial management as would secure for it not only a local but a national influence. ”

“ The Duchess of Chiselhurst is giving a great ball on the 29th. It is to be a very swagger affair, with notables from every part of Europe, and they seem determined that no one connected with a newspaper shall be admitted. We have set at work every influence to obtain an invitation for a reporter, but without success, the reply invariably given being that an official account will be sent to the press. ”

“ The Making of the Newspaper. For a conception of the wonderful progress of the press, one must leave mere annals and enter the workshop. The newspaper such as Defoe edited was nothing more than a brief chronicle of news gathered haphazard, concluding with the advertisement of a quack doctor. Next came the reporter. The special correspondent here and there appeared in the seventeenth century, but he did not gain his place till the Crimean War, and in the United States not till the Civil War. Now every great daily has its hundred correspondents scattered about the globe. ”

“ In certain advertising agencies there is a standing rule in the matter of newspaper plates that all proofs must be pulled on newspaper stock—and a very inferior grade. A newspaper press is used, an entire series coming off at once. ”

“ The modern newspaper is a product of city life; it is no longer merely an organ of propaganda and opinion, but a form of popular literature. The journal of opinion was largely a business man's newspaper. The so-called independent press added to its public the so-called artisan class. The yellow press was created mainly to capture immigrants, and women.
It was this increase of circulation that made the newspaper—formerly a subsidized organ of the parties an independent business enterprise, an envelope and carrier for advertising. ”

“ Of what value are all the opinions and advice given here without the aid of the press? We will attain our aim only when the press is in our hands. Our people must direct the daily publications. We are cunning, shrewd, and we possess money which we know how to utilize for our purposes. ”

“ This is true not only of periodicals and weeklies but also of the great morning dailies, which are by far the most influential part of that institution,16 which we casually refer to as “the press.” Here is where power is presumed to reside. Whether it be politics or art or finance, everyone, who wants anything important done to influence the general public, feels that it is here that the first and most valiant effort must be made. The press must be got at and persuaded or bullied into taking what is the only possible point of view, as each individual sees it for himself. ”

“ Newspapers are distributed on the same principle as are the letters.
The newspaper department of a post-office is one that may well be called the “reservoir” of the press: here flows all that makes up that vast institution, here comes the highest standard of our literature, down to the meanest sheet venality produces. A number of men are constantly employed in the newspaper room, or, as we term it, “the rotunda of literature.” This is emphatically the wholesale room; for they deal in bulk. Papers coming singly, directed to individuals, pass through the same process as do the letters. ”

“ You don’t need to be told how vast is the domain and how electric and irresistible is the influence of the newspaper press. You do not care to listen to a lecture on the duties and responsibilities of your profession. ”

“ The newspaper press is organized so as to be a more perfect expression of public opinion than it possibly could be in your day, when private capital controlled and managed it primarily as a money-making business, and secondarily only as a mouthpiece for the people. ”

“ And then he asked them only to name the day they wanted to see Woolwich or to cross to France. But nothing like that was happening to me. So what else should a journalist do?
Well, evidently a journalist should get in good standing with a war office which alone can press the button to everywhere she wants to go. The short cut to a war office is through a press bureau. But a press bureau modestly shrinks from the publicity that it purveys. You do not find it on Main Street with a lettered signboard and a hand pointing: “Journalists, right this way.” ”

“ Newspaper workers claim no right to speak through the pages of their employers’ papers. From copyboy to top editor, newspapermen are hired hands, engaged for the sole purpose of putting their employer’s opinions in print. ”

“ Here is the great brainpan of journalism; the centre of newspaper activity, the prefecture of police of the public press. Absolutely necessary is it that it should be entirely a secret police, the “awful, shadowy, irresponsible, and yet puissant we” should dominate over the columns of the daily journal. Will a time ever come, I wonder, when a man will sign his own articles in a newspaper ”

“ The general press prints what the public wants; the specific newspaper prints what its editor thinks the class of readers to which it caters wants. If he gauges his public right, he succeeds; if he does not, he fails. You can no more make the people read a newspaper they do not want than you can make a horse drink when he is not thirsty. In this respect the pulpit has the better of the press. ”

“ If the public is thus given over to sensationalism and folly, is the press fulfilling its mission by pandering to its thirst? It was once a theory that the press was a leader of the people. Has the journal of the present no ambition beyond the biggest circulation and the largest cash receipts? ”

“ The most acute problem of this vexed time is the ever-growing power of the newspaper press. Legislation of a drastic kind is needed to cope with certain newspaper ‘bosses’ in Great Britain and America and their combinations, national and international, of periodicals, agencies, special correspondents and their sinister antennae, which persistently foul at the source the wells of truth. ”

“ When I first entered the street, twenty years ago alas! the social status of press men was much lower than at present, when the pendulum has swung the other way, so that newspaper proprietors wear coronets, the purlieus of Fleet Street are infested with barons and baronets, and even reporters have been knighted by the King. In my early days a journalist did not often get nearer to a Cabinet Minister than the hall porter of his office. ”

“ In a word, treat the newspaper reporter as you would any other gentleman and in the long run you will profit by it. If you are the press representative of your local organization try to have from time to time items of news pertainng to matters other than that of woman suffrage. Use the telephone lavishly and let your home be a sort of stopping place for the reporter in his routine work. When you present such an attitude toward the press the editors cannot find it in their hearts to refuse if you want a little space for yourself and your cause. ”

“ Just as fast as the daily press advances in real independence and efficiency, the compensation of journalists will increase, until a great reporter will receive a reward in some slight degree proportioned to the rarity of the species and to the greatness of the services of which he is the medium. By reporters, we mean, of course, the entire corps of news-givers, from the youth who relates the burning of a stable, to the philosopher who chronicles the last vagary of a German metaphysician. ”

“ There had been an investigation by the President of the United States of one of America’s greatest industries, and I had been tacitly commissioned to make the results known to the public, for the benefit of the public, whose physical health was at stake. I came to the great press association, an organization representing at that time some seven hundred newspapers, with scores of millions of readers, hungry for news. The Associated Press was the established channel through which the news was supposed to flow; and in this crisis the channel proved to be a concrete wall. ”