Publicity

“ Assuming that you desire to introduce or further exploit a worthy service and route, publicity should be the first vital consideration. In this propaganda who can better assist you to reach the world and his wife than the rank and file, than those men and youths of high and low degree whom you meet when you occasionally call and who, during your absence, are always in immediate contact with buyers and the stream of enquiring public, alert and receptive, like a big league star playing close to the third sack. ”

“ With iron-faced rigor you have made them run The gauntlet of publicity—each Hun Or Vandal of the public press allowed To throw their households open to the crowd And bawl their secret bickerings aloud. When Wealth before you suppliant appears, Bang! ”

“ Around him, all cheery and eating, sat the press agents of the Government—the general publicity chief, with his larger staff, at their table; the special departmental staffs, the haughty publicity aids of the great publicity cabinet members, the lordly military publicity colonels and commodores of the war and navy departments; the private free-lances, the professional advisers and tipsters of business and stock houses and the great national corporations. All the great specialists, developed in the national capital by the huge publicity activity during the war. ”

“ Again, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the public has been taught many lessons. The immense newspaper publicity, which could never have been obtained except for a struggle on a stupendous scale, has proved a campaign of education for young and old, for business man and farmer, for lawyer and politician, for housewife and for student. It has left the manufacturer less cocksure of the soundness of his individualist philosophy. ”

“ There are positive and distinct virtues inherent in publicity quite apart from the fact that it is the medium through which the journalist works. This fact is beginning to be realised more and more in this country. ”

“ TUMULTY,
White House, Washington.
The issue of publicity is being obscured by the newspaper men and we have won for the press all that is possible or wise to win, namely, complete publicity for real conferences. Publicity for the conversations I am holding with the small group of the great powers will invariably break up the whole thing, whereas the prospects for agreement are now, I should say, very good indeed. Delighted that you are up and beg that you will not expose yourself or exert yourself too soon. Affectionate messages from us all. ”

“ There must be publicity, and publicity is of quite recent growth; the application of the discovery must be not only possible but obvious, as satisfying some want. But wants are only felt as civilization progresses. ”

“ Always when one has private matters to discuss, I believe in a certain amount of publicity. Here we are in a quiet corner, it is true, but we are surrounded by several hundreds of other people. They are far too occupied with their own affairs to watch us. ”

“ If every institution became no more than what it was designed to be, by those who originally framed it, the state of man on earth would be very different from what it is. The unchecked means of publicity, out of all question, are indispensable to the circulation of truths ”

“ The first exercise of that power should be the securing of publicity among all great corporations doing an interstate business. The publicity, though non-inquisitorial, should be real and thorough as to all important facts with which the public has concern. ”

“ Advertisers have long utilized this principle. "The machine you will eventually buy," "Ask the man who owns one," "Has the strength of Gibraltar," are publicity slogans so full of confidence that they give birth to confidence in the mind of the reader. ”

“ Much that happens in these days is presented to the public in the words of the actors or their satellites, without evaluation through the mind of the professional journalist.
Whole sections devoted to the automobile industry, columns of theatrical "notes" and even "criticism," book "reviews," much industrial, financial and real estate "news," college and university items, stories of organized uplift movements, and a considerable body of political and administrative news from governmental centers are furnished to the press in the form of publicity "handouts." ”

“ When, however, a member himself has given publicity to his opinions, by public speech, by documents in print, or in writing, or by any other means, he shall, as regards such actions, be amenable to the general law. ”

“ Besides, the other examples touch living people, and with living people I want to have as little to do as possible in these memoirs.
CHAPTER XXI THE PLACE OF THE JOURNALIST IN MODERN LIFE The watch-dog's function by no means exhausts the work of the journalist. There remains that strange function which is not yet quite realised or understood in a modern community, the function of publicity. Publicity is, in one sense, the method or instrument by which the watch- dog gives its warning: it is his bark. But there is something more in publicity than this. Publicity is an end as well as a means. ”

“ We go on the principle that if anything is good, it is for the public. Publicity is honorable and proper recognition, and those who have charge of the public trumpets have not time, if they have the ability, to discriminate and criticize very closely. ”

“ The keynote of modern philosophy is intelligence, or as we speak of it more objectively, publicity. It is claimed very generally among theorists that publicity is the radical treatment of unwholesome social conditions. ”

“ He shall organize and employ wide publicity or rely on secret and careful means on different aspects of the issue according to the nature of the issue, human nature and common sense, and organize his campaign to reach every type of person, every temperament, and order of circumstance, each in its own way. ”

“ The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies; ”

“ Rumely, 345 U.S. 41, 57-58, 73 S.Ct. 543, 551, 97 L.Ed. 770 (concurring opinion) , where several problems were posed. Can the Government damand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publications? Would not the spectre of a government agent then look over the shoulder of everyone who reads? Might not the purchase of a book or pamphlet today result in a subpoena tomorrow? Would not the fear of criticism go with every person into the bookstall? If the light of publicity may reach any student, any teacher, would not free inquiry be discouraged? ”

“ 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. ”

“ To effect, however, this great object, the co-operation p. 143of that mighty engine of good or evil—the public press, is essential. When the information, the talent, the eloquence, which are so conspicuous in many of our leading journals are considered, we cease to wonder at the immense influence they possess over the public mind; for partly through indolence, partly through ignorance, a large proportion of men are disposed to adopt, without examination, opinions which come recommended by the authority of a name they have been accustomed to respect and value. ”

“ A CONSIDERATION OF THE PRESS AND OTHER MEDIUMS OF COMMUNICATION IN THEIR RELATION TO THE PUBLIC RELATIONS COUNSEL When the question of preparing and publishing this volume was first considered, the publishers wrote letters to several hundred prominent men asking their opinions, individually, as to the probable public interest in a work dealing with public relations. Newspaper editors and publishers, heads of large industries and public service corporations, philanthropists, university presidents and heads of schools of journalism, as well as other prominent men made up the number. ”

“ To answer the question as to the stubbornness or malleability of the public, let us analyze the press in its relation to public opinion, since the press stands preëminent among the various institutions which are commonly designated as leaders or moulders of the public mind. By the press, in this instance, I mean the daily71 press. Americans are a newspaper-reading public. They have become accustomed to look to their morning and evening papers for the news of the world and for the opinions of their leaders. ”

“ Many outside forces, however, do go to influence public opinion. The most obvious of these forces are parental influence, the school room, the press, motion pictures, advertising, magazines, lectures, the church, the radio. ”

“ The press begins to teach and to excite; those of like minds assemble together at public meetings, and the discourse of an enthusiastic speaker exercises its influence. Gradually the number of those who are interested increases; from the strife of different views, which contend together in public, is developed a knowledge of what is necessary, an insight into the ways and means, the will to meet such requirements, and, lastly, self-sacrifice and devotion. ”

“ So long as the press remains the greatest single medium for reaching the public mind, the work of the public relations counsel will necessarily have close contacts with the work of the journalist. He transmits his ideas, however, through all those mediums which help to build public opinion—the radio, the lecture platform, advertising, the stage, the motion picture, the mails. ”

“ In the uncritical eyes of the commonplace men of affairs, whose experience in business has trained them into a quasi-tropismatic approval of notoriety as a means of advertising, these puerile demonstrations will, of course, have a high value simply in their own right. ”

“ To comprehend more fully the force and bearing of public opinion, and to form a just estimate of the changes to which, aided by the press, it will probably lead, politically and socially, it will be necessary to consider it in connection with the causes that have given it an influence so great as to entitle it to be regarded as a new political element. ”

“ The reaches of public opinion have been infinitely extended; the number of voices that must be heeded in legislation and in executive policy has been infinitely multiplied. Modern influences have inclined every man to clear his throat for a word in the world’s debates. They have popularized everything they have touched.
In the newspapers, it is true, there is very little concert between the writers; little but piecemeal opinion is created by their comment and argument; there is no common voice amidst their counsellings. ”

“ Where once it was the fashion of the press to ridicule and jeer it came to pass that the best men on the papers were sent to interview her. Society, too, threw open its doors, and into many distinguished gatherings she carried the refreshing breadth of sincerity and earnestness. ”

“ The conductors of the public press must take ground on all the questions of the day, and each accordingly strikes out such a line as suits his own leanings, the palates of his readers, or what he deems for the good of the country. ”

“ Originally, the Press in all countries, was intended to be the most magnificent institution of the civilized world,—the voice of truth, of liberty, of justice—a voice which in its clamant utterances could neither be bribed nor biassed to cry out false news. ”

“ The close watching of the course of opinion has become to-day the principal preoccupation of the press and of governments. The effect produced by an event, a legislative proposal, a speech, is without intermission what they require to know, and the task is not easy, for nothing is more mobile and changeable than the thought of crowds, and nothing more frequent than to see them execrate to-day what they applauded yesterday. ”

“ THE INCREASED AND INCREASING IMPORTANCE OF THE PROFESSION The rise of the modern public relations counsel is based on the need for and the value of his services. Perhaps the most significant social, political and industrial fact about the present century is the increased attention which is paid to public opinion, not only by individuals, groups or movements that are dependent on public support for their success, but also by men and organizations which until very recently stood aloof from the general public and were able to say, “The public be damned.” ”

“ Then and there, in this regard, public discussion supplied the place which the universal activity of the press has since monopolized, and the public speaker who, by clearness, force, earnestness, and wit; could make himself felt on the questions of the day would rapidly come to the front. ”

“ The Value of the Press.—The most valuable service rendered by the press is its education of the public mind, so that public opinion may register itself in intelligent action. It provides a forum for the discussion of issues that divide sects and parties, and helps to preserve religious freedom and popular government. ”

“ Who owns the press and why? When you read your daily paper, are you reading facts or propaganda? And whose propaganda?
Who furnishes the raw material for your thoughts about life? Is it honest material?
No man can ask more important questions than these; and here for the first time the questions are answered in a book. ”

“ At the beginning of each article he will quote the foreign paper from which it is taken, that the public, seeing from what country a piece of news comes, with the allowance of that government, may be better able to judge of the credibility and fairness of the relation. Nor will he take upon himself to give any comments, . . . supposing other people to have sense enough to make reflexions for themselves.” Then came, in rapid succession, a crowd of new competitors for public favour, of less frequent publication. ”