public, discussed in previous chapters, the public relations counsel
must create news around his ideas. News will, by its superior inherent
interest, receive attention in the competitive markets for news, which
are themselves continually trying to claim the public attention. The
public relations counsel must lift startling facts from his whole
subject and present them as news. He must isolate ideas and develop
them into events so that they can be more readily understood and so
that they may claim attention as news.
The headline and the cartoon bear the same relation to the newspaper
that the public relations counsel’s analysis of a problem bears to the
problem itself.
The headline is a compact, vivid simplification of complicated issues.
The cartoon provides a visual image which takes the place of abstract
thought. So, too, the analyses the public relations counsel makes,
lift out the important, the interesting, and the easily understandable
points in order to create interest.
“Yet human qualities are themselves,” says Mr. Lippmann,[31] “vague and
fluctuating. They are best remembered by a physical sign. And therefore
the human qualities we tend to ascribe to the names of our impressions,
themselves tend to be visualized in physical metaphors. The people of
England, the history of England, condense into England, and England
becomes John Bull, who is jovial and fat, not too clever, but well able
to take care of himself. The migration of a people may appear to some
as a meandering of a river, and to others like a devastating flood. The
courage people display may be objectified as a rock, their purpose as
a road, their doubts as forks of the road, their difficulties as ruts
and rocks, their progress as a fertile valley. If they mobilize their
dreadnaughts they unsheath a sword. If their army surrenders they are
thrown to earth. If they are oppressed they are on the rack or under
the harrow.”
Perhaps the chief contribution of the public relations counsel to the
public and to his client is his ability to understand and analyze
obscure tendencies of the public mind. It is true that he first
analyzes his client’s problem--he then analyzes the public mind; he
utilizes the mediums of communication between the two, but before he
does this he must use his personal experience and knowledge to bring
two factors into alignment. It is his capacity for crystallizing the
obscure tendencies of the public mind before they have reached definite
expression, which makes him so valuable.
His ability to create those symbols to which the public is ready to
respond; his ability to know and to analyze those reactions which
the public is ready to give; his ability to find those stereotypes,
individual and community, which will bring favorable responses; his
ability to speak in the language of his audience and to receive from it
a favorable reception are his contributions.
The appeal to the instincts and the universal desires is the basic
method through which he produces his results.
PART IV
ETHICAL RELATIONS
CHAPTER I
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. Their
replies are exceedingly interesting in as much as they show, almost
uniformly, the increasing emphasis placed upon public relations by
leaders in every important phase of American life. These replies show
also a growing understanding of the need for specialized service in
this field of specialized problems.
Particularly interesting were the comments of newspaper publishers
and editors in response to Mr. Liveright’s inquiry, for nothing could
better indicate the light in which the public relations counsel is held
by those very individuals who are supposed popularly to disparage his
value in the social and economic scheme of things.
What are the relations of the public relations counsel to the various
mediums he can employ to carry his message to the public? There is,
of course, first and perhaps most important, the press. There is the
moving picture; the lecture platform; there is advertising; there is
the direct-by-mail effort; there is the stage--drama and music; there
is word of mouth; there is the pulpit, the schoolroom, the legislative
chamber--to all of these the public relations counsel has distinct
relationship.
The journalist of to-day, while still watching the machinations of the
so-called “press agent” with one half-amused eye, appreciates the value
of the service the public relations counsel is able to give him.
To the newspaper the public relations counsel serves as a purveyor of
news.
As disseminator of news the newspaper holds an important position in
American life. This has not always been the case, for the emphasis upon
the news side is a development of recent years. Originally, the name
newspaper was scarcely an accurate or appropriate designation for
the units of the American press. So-called newspapers were, in fact,
vehicles for the expression of opinion of their editors. They contained
little or no news, as that word is understood to-day--largely because
difficulties of communication made it impossible to obtain any but the
most local items of interest. The public was accustomed to look to its
press for the opinion of its favorite editor upon subjects of current
interest rather than for the recital of mere facts.
To-day, on the other hand, the expression of editorial opinion is only
secondarily the function of a newspaper; and thousands of persons read
newspapers with whose editorial policy they do not in the slightest
agree. Such a situation would have been nearly impossible in the days
of Horace Greeley.
The need which the American press is to-day engaged in satisfying is
the need for news. “A paper,” says Mr. Given,[32] “may succeed without
printing editorials worth reading and without having any aim other than
the making of money, but it cannot possibly thrive unless it gets the
news and prints it in a pleasing and attractive form.”
Writing from a long experience with the profession of journalism,
Will Irwin reaches the conclusion that[33] “news is the main thing,
the vital consideration of the American newspaper; it is both an
intellectual craving and a commercial need to the modern world. In
popular psychology it has come to be a crying primal want of the mind,
like hunger of the body. Tramp windjammers, taking on the pilot after
a long cruise, ask for the papers before they ask, as formerly, for
fresh fruit and vegetables. Whenever, in our later Western advance,
we Americans set up a new mining camp, an editor, his type slung
on burro-back, comes in with the missionaries, evangel himself of
civilization. Most dramatically the San Francisco disaster illuminated
this point. On the morning of April 20, 1906, the city’s population
huddled in parks and squares, their houses gone, death of famine or
thirst a rumor and a possibility. The editors of the three morning
newspapers, expressing the true soldier spirit which inspires this most
devoted profession, had moved their staffs to the suburb of Oakland,
and there, on the presses of the _Tribune_, they had issued a combined
_Call-Chronicle-Examiner_. When, at dawn, the paper was printed, an
editor and a reporter loaded the edition into an automobile and drove
it through the parks of the disordered city, giving copies away. They
were fairly mobbed, they had to drive at top speed, casting out the
sheets as they went, to make any progress at all. No bread wagon, no
supply of blankets, caused half so much stir as did the arrival of the
news.
“We need it, we crave it; this nerve of the modern world transmits
thought and impulse from the brain of humanity to its muscles; the
complex organism of modern society could no more move without it than
a man could move without filaments and ganglia. On the commercial
and practical side, the man of even small affairs must read news
in the newspapers every day to keep informed on the thousand and
one activities in the social structure which affect his business.
On the intellectual and spiritual side, it is--save for the Church
alone--our principal outlook on the higher intelligence. The thought
of legislature, university, study, and pulpit comes to the common man
first--and usually last--in the form of news. The tedious business of
teaching reading in public schools has become chiefly a training to
consume newspapers. We must go far up in the scale of culture before we
find an intellectual equipment more a debtor to the formal education of
school and college than to the haphazard education of news.”
The extent to which the editorial aspect of the newspaper has given way
to an increased importance of the news columns is vividly illustrated
in the anecdote about the _Philadelphia North American_, which Mr.
Irwin relates. “The _North American_,” says Mr. Irwin, “had declared
for local option. A committee of brewers waited on the editor; they
represented one of the biggest groups in their business. ‘This is
an ultimatum,’ they said. ‘You must change your policy or lose our
advertising. We’ll be easy on you. We don’t ask you to alter your
editorial policy, _but you must stop printing news of local-option
victories_.’[34] So the deepest and shrewdest enemies of the body
politic give practical testimony to the ‘power of the press’ in its
modern form.”
In the case of the brewers of Philadelphia it is my own opinion that
if they had been well advised, instead of attempting to interfere with
the policy of the _North American_, they would have made it a point to
bring to the attention of the _North American_ every instance of the
defeat of local option. The newspaper would undoubtedly have published
both sides of the story, as far as both sides consisted of news.
It is because he acts as the purveyor of truthful, accurate
and verifiable news to the press that the conscientious and
successful counsel on public relations is looked upon with favor
by the journalist. And in the Code of Ethics recently adopted in
Washington by a national editors’ conference, his function is given
acknowledgment. Just as in the case of the other mediums for the
dissemination of information, mediums which range from the lecture
platform to the radio, the press, too, looks to the public relations
counsel for information about the causes he represents.
Since news is the newspaper’s backbone, it is obvious that an
understanding of what news actually is must be an integral part of the
equipment of the public relations counsel. For the public relations
counsel must not only supply news--he must create news. This function
as the creator of news is even more important than his others.
It has always been interesting to me that a concise, comprehensive
definition of news has never been written. What news is, every
newspaper man instinctively knows, particularly as it concerns the
needs of his own paper. But it is almost as difficult to define news
as it is to describe a circular staircase without making corkscrew
gestures with one’s hand, or as to define some of the abstruse concepts
of the metaphysician, like space or time or reality.
What is news for one newspaper may have no interest whatever, or very
little interest, for another newspaper. There are almost as many
definitions of news as there are journalists who take the trouble
to define it. Certain of the characteristics of news, of course, can
be readily seized upon; and definitions of news generally consist of
particular emphasis upon one or another of these characteristics. Mr.
Given remarks that[35] “news was once defined as ‘Fresh information
of something that has lately taken place.’...” The author of this
definition puts the chief emphasis upon the element of timeliness.
Undoubtedly in most news that element must be present. It would not be
true, however, to say that it must always be present, nor would it be
true to say that everything which is timely is news. Obviously, the
well-nigh infinite number of occurrences which take place in daily life
throughout the world are timely enough, so far as each of them in its
respective environment is concerned; but few of them ever become news.
Mr. Irwin defines news as “a departure from the established order.”
Thus, according to Mr. Irwin, a criminal act is news because it is
a departure from the established order, and at the same time, an
exceptional display of fidelity, courage or honesty is also news for
the same reason.
“With our education in established order, we get the knowledge,” he
says,[36] “that mankind in bulk obeys its ideals of that order only
imperfectly. When something brings to our attention an exceptional
adhesion to religion, virtue, and truth, that becomes in itself a
departure from regularity, and therefore news. The knowledge that most
servants do their work conscientiously and many stay long in the same
employ is not news. But when a committee of housewives presents a
medal to a servant who has worked faithfully in one employ for fifty
years, that becomes news, because it calls our attention to a case of
exceptional fidelity to the ideals of established order. The fact that
mankind will consume an undue amount of news about crime and disorder
is only a proof that the average human being is optimistic, that he
believes the world to be true, sound and working upward. Crimes and
scandals interest him most because they most disturb his picture of the
established order.
“That, then, is the basis of news. The mysterious news sense which
is necessary to all good reporters rests on no other foundation
than acquired or instinctive perception of this principle, together
with a feeling for what the greatest number of people will regard
as a departure from the established order. In Jesse Lynch William’s
newspaper play, ‘The Stolen Story,’ occurs this passage:
“(_Enter Very Young Reporter; comes down to city desk with air
of excitement._)
“VERY YOUNG REPORTER (_considerably impressed_): ‘Big story.
Three dagoes killed by that boiler explosion!’
“THE CITY EDITOR (_reading copy. Doesn’t look up_): ‘Ten
lines.’ (_Continues reading copy._)
“VERY YOUNG REPORTER (_looks surprised and hurt. Crosses over
to reporter’s table. Then turns back to city desk. Casual
conversational tone_): ‘By the way. Funny thing. There was a
baby carriage within fifty feet of the explosion, but it wasn’t
upset.’
“THE CITY EDITOR (_looks up with professional interest_):
‘That’s worth a dozen dead dagoes. Write a half column.’
“(_Very Young Reporter looks still more surprised, perplexed.
Suddenly the idea dawns upon him. He crosses over to table,
sits down, writes._)
“Both saw news; but the editor went further than the reporter. For
cases of Italians killed by a boiler explosion are so common as to
approach the commonplace; but a freak of explosive chemistry which
annihilates a strong man and does not disturb a baby departs from it
widely.”
Here again it is clear that Mr. Irwin has merely emphasized one of the
features generally to be found in what we call news, without, however,
offering us a complete or exclusive definition of news.
Analyzing further within his general rule that news is a departure
from the established order, Mr. Irwin goes on to point out certain
outstanding factors which enhance or create news value. I cite them
here because all of them are unquestionably sound. On the other hand,
analysis shows that some of them are directly contradictory to his main
principle that only the departure from the established order is news.
In Mr. Irwin’s opinion, the four outstanding factors making for the
creation or enhancement of news value are the following:[37]
1. “_We prefer to read about the things we like._” The result,
he says, has been the rule: “Power for the men, affections for
the women.”
2. “_Our interest in news increases in direct ratio to our
familiarity with its subject, its setting, and its dramatis
personæ._”
3. “_Our interest in news is in direct ratio to its effect on
our personal concerns._”
4. “_Our interest in news increases in direct ratio to the
general importance of the persons or activities which it
affects._” This is so obvious that it scarcely needs comment.
Some notion of the diversity of news arising in a city may be obtained
if one studies the points which are watched as news sources, either
continuously or closely by metropolitan dailies. Mr. Given[38] lists
the places in New York which are watched constantly:
“Police Headquarters.
Police Courts.
Coroner’s Office.
Supreme Courts, New York County.
New York Stock Exchange.
City Hall, including the Mayor’s Office, Aldermanic Chamber,
City Clerk’s Office, and Office of the President of Manhattan
Borough.
County Clerk’s office.”
Those places, says Mr. Given, which the newspapers watch carefully, but
not continually, are:
“City Courts (Minor civil cases).
Court of General Sessions (Criminal cases).
Court of Special Sessions (Minor criminal cases).
District Attorney’s Office.
Doors of Grand Jury rooms when the Grand Jury is in session
(For indictments and presentments).
Federal Courts.
Post Office.
United States Commissioner’s Offices, and Offices of the United
States Secret Service officers.
United States Marshal’s Office.
United States District Attorney’s Office.
Ship News, where incoming and outgoing vessels are reported.
Barge Office, where immigrants land.
Surrogate’s Office, where wills are filed and testimony
concerning wills in litigation is heard.
Political Headquarters during campaigns.”
Finally, “the following are visited by the reporters several times, or
only once a day:
“Police Stations.
Municipal Courts.
Board of Health Headquarters.
Fire Department Headquarters.
Park Department Headquarters.
Building Department Headquarters.
Tombs Prison.
County Jail.
United States Sub-treasury.
Office of Collector of the Port.
United States Appraiser’s Office.
Public Hospitals.
Leading Hotels.
The Morgue.
County Sheriff’s Office.
City Comptroller’s Office.
City Treasurer’s Office.
Offices of the Tax Collector and Tax Assessors.”
Mr. Given’s example of the broker, John Smith, illustrates aptly the
point I am making. “For ten years,” said Mr. Given,[39] “he pursues
the even tenor of his way and except for his customers and his friends
no one gives him a thought. To the newspapers he is as if he were not.
But in the eleventh year he suffers heavy losses and, at last, his
resources all gone, summons his lawyer and arranges for the making of
an assignment. The lawyer posts off to the County Clerk’s office, and
a clerk there makes the necessary entries in the office docket. Here
in step the newspapers. While the clerk is writing Smith’s business
obituary, a reporter glances over his shoulder, and a few minutes
later the newspapers know Smith’s troubles and are as well informed
concerning his business status as they would be had they kept a
reporter at his door every day for over ten years. Had Smith dropped
dead instead of merely making an assignment his name would have
reached the newspapers by way of the Coroner’s office instead of the
County Clerk’s office, and in fact, while Smith did not know it, the
newspapers were prepared and ready for him no matter what he did. They
even had representatives waiting for him at the Morgue. He was safe
only when he walked the straight and narrow path and kept quiet.”
An overt act is often necessary before an event can be regarded as news.
Commenting on this aspect of the situation, Mr. Lippmann discusses
this very example of the broker, John Smith, and his hypothetical
bankruptcy. “That overt act,” says Mr. Lippmann,[40] “‘uncovers’ the
news about Smith. Whether the news will be followed up or not is
another matter. The point is that before a series of events become news
they have usually to make themselves noticeable in some more or less
overt act. Generally, too, in a crudely overt act. Smith’s friends may
have known for years that he was taking risks, rumors may even have
reached the financial editor if Smith’s friends were talkative. But
apart from the fact that none of this could be published because it
would be libel, there is in these rumors nothing definite on which
to peg a story. Something definite must occur that has unmistakable
form. It may be the act of going into bankruptcy, it may be a fire,
a collision, an assault, a riot, an arrest, a denunciation, the
introduction of a bill, a speech, a vote, a meeting, the expressed
opinion of a well-known citizen, an editorial in a newspaper, a sale, a
wage-schedule, a price change, the proposal to build a bridge.... There
must be a manifestation. The course of events must assume a certain
definable shape, and until it is in a phase where some aspect is an
accomplished fact, news does not separate itself from the ocean of
possible truth.”
From the point of view of the practical journalist, Mr. Irwin has
applied this observation to the making of the news of the day. He
says:[41] “I state a platitude when I say that government by the people
is the essence of democracy. In theory, the people watch and know;
when, in the process of social and industrial evolution, they see a
new evil becoming important, they found institutions to regulate it
or laws to repress it. They cannot watch without light, know without
teachers. The newspaper, or some force like it, must daily inform them
of things which are shocking and unpleasant in order that democracy,
in its slow, wobbling motion upward, may perceive and correct. It is
good for us to know that John Smith, made crazy by drink, came home and
killed his wife. Startled and shocked, but interested, we may follow
the case of John Smith, see that justice in his case is not delayed by
his pull with Tammany. Perhaps, when there are enough cases of John
Smith, we shall look into the first causes and restrain the groggeries
that made him momentarily mad or the industrial oppression that made
him permanently an undernourished, overnerved defective. It is good to
know that John Jones, a clerk, forged a check and went to jail. For not
only shall we watch justice in his case, but some day we shall watch
also the fraudulent race-track gambling that tempted him to theft. If
every day we read of those crimes which grow from the misery of New
York’s East Side and Chicago’s Levee, some day democracy may get at the
ultimate causes for overwork, underfeeding, tenement crowding.
“No other method is so forcible with the public as driving home the
instance which points the moral. General description of bad conditions
fails, somehow, to impress the average mind. One might have shouted to
Shreveport day after day that low dives make dangerous negroes, and
created no sentiment against saloons. But when a negro, drunk on bad
gin which he got at such a dive, assaulted and killed Margaret Lear, a
schoolgirl, Shreveport voted out the saloon.”
For the great mass of activities there is no machinery of record
whatever. How these are to be recorded when they are important is the
real problem for the press.
In this field the public relations counsel plays a considerable part.
His is the business of calling to the public attention, through the
press and through every other available medium, the point of view, the
movement or the issue which he represents. Mr. Lippmann has observed
that it is for this reason that what he calls the “press agent” has
become an important factor in modern life.
Mr. Lippmann’s observation on this point deserves comment. He says:[42]
“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.”
The really important function of the public relations counsel, in
relation to the press as well as to his client, lies even beyond these
considerations. He is not merely the purveyor of news; he is more
logically the _creator_ of news.
An amateur can bring a good story to the average newspaper office and
receive consideration, although the amateur is only too likely to miss
precisely those features of his story which give it news value, and
to overlook precisely that element of the story which will make it
interesting to the particular newspaper he is approaching.
The New York hotel proprietors were enforcing the prohibition law in
relation to their own establishments, but saw that certain restaurants
were violating the law with impunity. Realizing the injustice to them
of this situation, they built a definite news event by going over the
heads of the local law enforcement offices and wired an appeal direct
to President Harding, asking for enforcement. This naturally became
news of the first order.
The opening of a shop by prominent women in which were shown graphic
examples of the effect of the tariff on women’s wear was an event
created to intensify interest in this subject.
The launching of battleships with ceremony; the laying of corner
stones; the presentation of memorials; demonstration meetings, parties
and banquets are all events created with a view to their carrying
capacity in the various mediums that reach the public.
The departments of a modern newspaper will show the great variety of
possible approaches on any subject from the standpoint of the press.
When this is correlated to the possible approaches on any subject
from the standpoint of human psychology, we see the diversification
of methods to which the public relations counsel can have recourse to
construct events.
In the metropolitan press, for instance, there are the news
departments, the editorial departments, the letter-to-the-editor
department, the women’s department, the society department, the current
events department, the sport department, the real estate department,
the business department, the financial department, the shipping
department, the investment department, the educational department,
the photographic department and the other special feature writers and
sections, different in different journals.
In a valuable study on the “Newspaper Reading Habits of Business
Executives and Professional Men in New York” compiled by Professor
George Burton Hotchkiss, Head of the Department of Advertising and
Marketing, and Richard B. Franken, Lecturer in Advertising at New York
University, there are several tables setting forth the features of
morning and evening newspapers preferred as a whole by the group to
whom the questionnaires were sent, and by various smaller groups within
the main group.
The counsel on public relations not only knows what news value is, but
knowing it, he is in a position to _make news happen_. He is a creator
of events.
An organization held a banquet for a building fund to which the
invitations were despatched on large bricks. The news element in this
story was the fact that bricks were despatched.
In this capacity, as purveyor and creator of news for the press as
well as for all other mediums of idea dissemination, it must be clear
immediately that the public relations counsel could not possibly
succeed unless he complied with the highest moral and technical
requirements of those with whom he is working.
Writing on the profession of the public relations counsel, the author
of an article in the _New York Times_[43] says “newspaper editors are
the most suspicious and cynical of mortals, but they are as quick to
discern the truth as to detect the falsehood.” He goes on to discuss
the particular public relations counsel whom he has in mind and
whom he designates by the fictitious name Swift, and remarks that:
“Irrespective of their position on ethics, Swift & Co. won’t deal
in spurious goods. They know that one such error would be fatal. The
public might forget, but the editor never. Besides, they don’t have to.”
Truthful and accurate must be the material which the public relations
counsel furnishes to the press and other mediums. In addition, it must
have the elements of timeliness and interest which are required of all
news--and it must not only have these elements in general, but it must
suit the particular needs of each particular newspaper and, even more
than that, it must suit the needs of the particular editor in whose
department it is hoped that it will be published.
Finally, the literary quality of the material must be up to the best
standards of the profession of journalism. The writing must be good,
in the particular sense in which each newspaper considers a story well
written.
In brief, the material must come to the editorial desk as carefully
prepared and as accurately verified as if the editor himself had
assigned a special reporter to secure and write the facts. Only by
presenting his news in such form and in such a manner can the counsel
on public relations hope to retain, in the case of the newspaper, the
most valuable thing he possesses--the editor’s faith and trust. But it
must be clearly borne in mind that only in certain cases is the public
relations counsel the intermediary between the news and the press. The
event he has counseled upon, the action he has created finds its own
level of expression in mediums which reach the public.
The radio stations offer an avenue of approach to the public. They are
controlled by private organizations, large electrical supply companies,
department stores, newspapers, telegraph companies and in some cases by
the government. Their programs broadcast information and entertainment
to those within their radius. These programs vary in different
localities.
To the public relations counsel there is a wide opportunity to utilize
the means of distribution the radio program affords. In partisan
matters, the controllers of the radio insist upon the presentation of
all points of view in order to have the onus of propaganda removed
from their shoulders. The public relations counsel is therefore in a
position to suggest to the broadcasting managers a symposium treatment
of the subject in which he happens to be interested. Or in the case of
information, which has not this partisan character, he is in a position
to assure treatment of his subject by embodying his thesis in the form
of a speech delivered by some individual of standing and reputation.
In the case of events which the public relations counsel may be
instrumental in creating, such as large public meetings, the radio
to-day becomes a natural form of distribution, just as news treatment
in a newspaper does, and the broadcasting to thousands and thousands
of people of the speeches becomes a corollary of the event itself. The
broadcasting of Lord Robert Cecil’s speech on the League of Nations,
delivered at a banquet in New York, is a case in point.
Many magazines, for instance, are availing themselves of the radio
stations to supply speeches on the particular topics they are most
interested in. So the housekeeping magazines supply the radio stations
with information about that phase of women’s activities. The fashion
magazines do likewise in their fields. And they thereby heighten their
own prestige and authority in the minds of their hearers.
The use of the wireless telegraph in war time was an important factor
in broadcasting information of war aims and war accomplishments
to enemy countries. It was used successfully by both Allied and
Central powers. It was utilized even by the Soviet Government in the
announcement of its communications. This form of propagation differs
slightly from the radio, referred to previously, since it depends for
its efficacy not upon reaching great numbers of hearers, but upon
reaching newspapers and other mediums that give currency to the
material broadcasted. The wireless telegraph of course was and is a
valuable asset to the public relations counsel.
The lecture platform is another well-established means of idea
communication.
The spoken word has to a certain extent lost its efficacy when the
lecture platform alone is considered.
The appeal of the lecture platform is limited by the actual number
of those who hear the message. It is possible to reach vaster
numbers through the printed word or the motion picture or even the
radioed word. Both the weakness of the human voice and the physical
characteristics of the place of assemblage bring about this limitation.
The lecture platform, however, still retains its importance for the
public relations counsel because it affords him the opportunity to
speak before group audiences which in themselves have a news value, or
because it presents the opportunity to stage dramatic events that bring
intensification of interest and action on the part of larger audiences
than those actually addressed.
The lecture field open to the public relations counsel for the
propagation of information or ideas may be divided into several
classifications. First there are the lecture managers and bureaus,
which act as agents in booking lecturers to different kinds of group
audiences throughout the country. The public relations counsel can,
for instance, suggest to his client to secure a prominent person, who
because of interest in a cause will be glad to undertake a lecture
tour. Then a bureau may manage the tour. The tours of important
proponents on such issues as the League of Nations fall in this class
as well as the tours of prominent authors, arranged by publishers in
their behalf.
Then there is the lecture tour managed by the client himself and
arranged through the booking of engagements with such local groups as
might be interested in assuming sponsorship for what is said. A soap
company might engage a lecturer on cleanliness to speak in the schools
of leading communities. Or a woolen firm arrange for a home economics
authority to lecture to women’s clubs on dress. These speeches of
course, locally, gain a wider audience than the speaker would who
addressed a single meeting because they give opportunity for treatment
in newspapers, advertising, circularizing, and other mediums.
The lecture field offers another means of communication in as much
as it gives the public relations counsel a range of group leaders to
whom he can furnish the facts and ideas he is trying to propagate. The
lecturers of Boards of Education in cities throughout the country,
the lecturers before schools and other institutions of learning, the
lecturers of one sort or another who address varied audiences can be
reached directly and can become the carriers of the information the
public relations counsel desires to give forth.
The meeting or public demonstration, at which prominent speakers voice
their views upon the particular problem or problems at issue, would
fall quite naturally under this same classification. Its main purpose,
of course, is not so much to reach the audience being addressed as to
make a focal point of interest for those thousands and millions who
do not attend, but who get the reverberations of the speaker’s voice
through other mediums than their own auditory sensation.
Advertising is a medium open to the public relations counsel. In the
sense in which the word is used here, the term applies to every form of
paid space available for the carrying of a message. From the newspaper
advertisement to the billboard, its forms are so varied that it has
developed its own literature and its own principles and practice. In
considering his objectives and the mediums through which his potential
public can be reached the public relations counsel always considers
advertising space as among his most important adjuncts. The wise public
relations counsel calls into conference on the particular kinds of
advertising to be used in a given problem the advertising agent who
has made this study his lifework. The public relations counsel and the
advertising agent then work out the problem in their respective fields.
Advertising up to the present time has laid its greatest stress upon
the creation of demands and markets for specific goods. It is also
applied with effectiveness to the propagation of ideas as well. It is
peculiarly effective when used in combination with other methods of
appeal.
Advertising controls the amount of physical space it occupies before
the public eye. Advertising’s dimensional qualities give it a facile
flexibility that can be extended or limited at will. In a sense, too,
this quality gives the special leader the opportunity to select his
audience and to give them his message directly.
The field of coöperative advertising by combinations of advertisers in
the same business or profession, by governments or their subdivisions,
for one reason or another, is open to future possibilities.
The stage offers an avenue of approach to the public which must be
regarded both from the standpoint of the numbers of individuals it
reaches as well as from the circles of influence it creates by word
of mouth and otherwise. To the public relations counsel therefore it
offers a wide field.
Through coöperation with playwrights or managers, ideas can be given
currency on the stage. When they can be translated to the action that
takes place upon a stage, they are given emphasis by the visual and
auditory presentation.
The motion picture falls into two fields for the purposes of the public
relations counsel. There is the field of the feature film. Here any
direct utilization of the public relations counsel’s ideas must come
indirectly and be taken by the producer of the film from some of the
other organs of thought communication. The producer may adopt for the
subject of a film some idea which the public relations counsel has
agitated. The film, for instance, dealing with the drug traffic came
very definitely as a result of the work carried on to help relieve the
drug evil.
The second field is one the public relations counsel can employ more
directly. Educational films are made to order to-day to illustrate
specific points for public consumption, from showing how a product is
made to showing the necessity for subway relief in a big city. These
films are usually shown before a special group audience arranged for
by the public relations counsel or before some other group interested
in the idea the particular film stands for. Thus a Chamber of
Commerce can further a film having to do with the need for better port
facilities.
One phase of this kind of film is the news reel which, controlled by a
private organization, films events and occasions which may have been
created by the public relations counsel, but which carries because of
its value in the competitive market of events.
Word of mouth is an important medium to be considered. Ideas and facts
can be given currency by word of mouth. Here group leaders are strong
factors in giving currency to ideas. The public relations counsel often
communicates the ideas he wishes to promulgate to group leaders whose
espousal of the idea he wishes to obtain.
The direct-by-mail campaign and the printed word afford the public
relations counsel channels of approach to such individuals as he may
desire to reach. Large companies have available for such purposes lists
of individuals arranged according to innumerable criteria. There are
geographical divisions, professional divisions, business divisions, and
divisions of religion. There are classifications by economic position,
classifications by all manner of preferences. This classification of
his public into the right groups for the proper appeals is one of
the most important functions of the public relations counsel, as we
have pointed out. The direct-by-mail method of approach offers wide
opportunities for capitalizing his training and experience along these
lines. Telegraphic and wireless communications would of course come
under this heading.
CHAPTER II
HIS OBLIGATIONS TO THE PUBLIC AS A SPECIAL PLEADER
It has been the history of new professions--and every profession
has been at some time a new profession--that they are accepted by
the public and become firmly established only after two significant
handicaps are overcome. The first of these, oddly enough, lies in
public opinion itself; it consists of the public’s reluctance to
acknowledge a dependence, however slight, upon the ministrations of
any one group of persons. Medicine, even to-day, is still fighting
this reluctance. The law is fighting it. Yet these are established
professions.
The second handicap is that any new profession must become established,
not through the efforts and activities of others, who might be
considered impartial, but through its own energy.
These handicaps are particularly potent in a profession of advocacy,
because it is engaged in the partisan representation of one point of
view. The legal profession is perhaps the most familiar example of this
fact, and in this light at least a trenchant comparison may be drawn
between the bar and the new profession of the public relations counsel.
Both these professions offer to the public substantially the same
services--expert training, a highly sensitized understanding of the
background from which results must be obtained, a keenly developed
capacity for the analysis of problems into their constituent elements.
Both professions are in constant danger of arousing crowd antagonism,
because they often stand in frank and open opposition to the fixed
point of view of one or another of the many groups which compose
society. Indeed it is this aspect of the work of the public relations
counsel which is undoubtedly the foundation of a good deal of popular
disapproval of his profession.
Even Mr. Martin, who on several occasions in his volume talks with
severe condemnation of what he calls propaganda, sees and admits the
fundamental psychological factors which make the adherents to one point
of view impute degraded or immoral motives to believers in other points
of view. He says:[44]
“The crowd-man can, when his fiction is challenged, save himself from
spiritual bankruptcy, preserve his defenses, keep his crowd from going
to pieces, only by a demur. Any one who challenges the crowd’s fictions
must be ruled out of court. He must not be permitted to speak. As
a witness to contrary values, his testimony must be discounted. The
worth of his evidence must be discredited by belittling the disturbing
witness. ‘He is a bad man; the crowd must not listen to him.’ His
motives must be evil; he is ‘bought up’; he is an immoral character; he
tells lies; he is insincere or he ‘has not the courage to take a stand’
or ‘there is nothing new in what he says.’
“Ibsen’s ‘Enemy of the People,’ illustrates this point very well. The
crowd votes that Doctor Stockman may not speak about the baths, the
real point at issue. Indeed, the mayor takes the floor and officially
announces that the doctor’s statement that the water is bad is
‘unreliable and exaggerated.’ Then the president of the Householders’
Association makes an address accusing the doctor of secretly ‘aiming at
revolution.’ When finally Doctor Stockman speaks and tells his fellow
citizens the real meaning of their conduct, and utters a few plain
truths about ‘the compact majority,’ the crowd saves its face, not by
proving the doctor false, but by howling him down, voting him an ‘enemy
of the people,’ and throwing stones through the window.”
If we analyze a specific example of the public relations counsel’s
work, we see the workings of the crowd-mind, which have made it so
difficult for his profession to gain popular approval. Let us take,
for example, the tariff situation again. It is manifestly impossible
for either side in the dispute to obtain a totally unbiased point
of view as to the other side. The importer calls the manufacturer
unreasonable; he imputes selfish motives to him. For his own part he
identifies the establishment of the conditions upon which he insists
with such things as social welfare, national safety, Americanism, lower
prices to the consumer, and whatever other fundamentals he can seize
upon. Every newspaper report carrying the flavor of adverse suggestion,
whether on account of its facts or on account of the manner of its
writing, is immediately branded as untrue, unfortunate, ill-advised. It
must, the importer concludes, it must have been inspired by insidious
machinations from the manufacturers’ interests.
But is the manufacturer any more reasonable? If the newspapers
publish stories unfavorable to his interests, then the newspapers
have been “bought up,” “influenced”; they are “partisan” and many
other unreasonable things. The manufacturer, just like the importer,
identifies his side of the struggle with such fundamental standards
as he can seize upon--a living wage, reduced prices to the consumer,
the American standard of employment, fair play, justice. To each the
contentions of the other are untenable.
Now, carry this situation one step further to the point at which the
public relations counsel is retained, on behalf of one side or the
other. Observe how sincerely each side and its adherents call even
the verifiable facts and figures of the other by that dread name
“propaganda.” Should the importers submit figures showing that wages
could be raised and the price to the consumer reduced, their adherents
would be gratified that such important educational work should be done
among the public and that the newspapers should be so fair-minded as
to publish it. The manufacturers, on the other hand, will call such
material “propaganda” and blame either the newspaper which publishes
those figures or the economist who compiled them, or the public
relations counsel who advised collating the material.
The only difference between “propaganda” and “education,” really, is in
the point of view. The advocacy of what we believe in is education. The
advocacy of what we don’t believe in is propaganda. Each of these nouns
carries with it social and moral implications. Education is valuable,
commendable, enlightening, instructive. Propaganda is insidious,
dishonest, underhand, misleading. It is only to-day that the viewpoint
on this question is undergoing a slight change, as the following
editorial would indicate:
“The relativity of truth,”[45] says Mr. Elmer Davis, “is a commonplace
to any newspaper man, even to one who has never studied epistemology;
and, if the phrase is permissible, truth is rather more relative in
Washington than anywhere else. Now and then it is possible to make a
downright statement; such and such a bill has passed in one of the
houses of Congress, or failed to pass; the administration has issued
this or that statement; the President has approved, or vetoed, a
certain bill. But most of the news that comes out of Washington is
necessarily rather vague, for it depends on the assertions of statesmen
who are reluctant to be quoted by name, or even by description. This
more than anything else is responsible for the sort of fog, the haze
of miasmatic exhalations, which hangs over news with a Washington date
line. News coming out of Washington is apt to represent not what is so
but what might be so under certain contingencies, what may turn out to
be so, what some eminent personage says is so, or even what he wants
the public to believe is so when it is not.”
Most subjects on which there is a so-called definite public opinion are
much more vague and indefinite, much more complex in their facts and in
their ramifications than the news from Washington which the historian
of the _New York Times_ describes. Consider, for example, what
complicated issues are casually disposed of by the average citizen.
An uninformed lay public may condemn a new medical theory on slight
consideration. Its judgment is hit or miss, as medical history proves.
Political, economic and moral judgments, as we have seen, are more
often expressions of crowd psychology and herd reaction than the result
of the calm exercise of judgment. It is difficult to believe that this
is not inevitable. Public opinion in a society consisting of millions
of persons, all of whom must somehow or other reach a working basis
with most of the others, is bound to find a level of uniformity founded
on the intelligence of the average member of society as a whole or of
the particular group to which one may belong. There is a different
set of facts on every subject for each man. Society cannot wait to
find absolute truth. It cannot weigh every issue carefully before
making a judgment. The result is that the so-called truths by which
society lives are born of compromise among conflicting desires and
of interpretation by many minds. They are accepted and intolerantly
maintained once they have been determined. In the struggle among ideas,
the only test is the one which Justice Holmes of the Supreme Court
pointed out--the power of thought to get itself accepted in the open
competition of the market.
The only way for new ideas to gain currency is through the acceptance
of them by groups. Merely individual advocacy will leave the truth
outside the general fund of knowledge and beliefs. The urge toward
suppression of minority or dissentient points of view is counteracted
in part by the work of the public relations counsel.
The standards of the public relations counsel are his own standards and
he will not accept a client whose standards do not come up to them.
While he is not called upon to judge the merits of his case any more
than a lawyer is called upon to judge his client’s case, nevertheless
he must judge the results which his work would accomplish from an
ethical point of view.
In law, the judge and jury hold the deciding balance of power. In
public opinion, the public relations counsel is judge and jury because
through his pleading of a case the public is likely to accede to his
opinion and judgment. Therefore, the public relations counsel must
maintain an intense scrutiny of his actions, avoiding the propagation
of unsocial or otherwise harmful movements or ideas.
Every public relations counsel has been confronted with the necessity
of refusing to accept clients whose cases in a law court would be
valid, but whose cases in the higher court of public opinion are
questionable.
The social value of the public relations counsel lies in the fact that
he brings to the public facts and ideas of social utility which would
not so readily gain acceptance otherwise. While he, of course, may
represent men and individuals who have already gained great acceptance
in the public mind, he may represent new ideas of value which have not
yet reached their point of largest acceptance or greatest saturation.
That in itself renders him important.
As for the relations between the public relations counsel and his
client, little can be said which would not be merely a repetition of
that code of decency by which men and women make moral judgments and
live reputable lives. The public relations counsel owes his client
conscientious, effective service, of course. He owes to his client
all the duties which the professions assume in relation to those they
serve. Much more important than any positive duty, however, which the
public relations counsel owes to his client is the negative duty--that
he must never accept a retainer or assume a position which puts his
duty to the groups he represents above his duty to his own standards
of integrity--to the larger society within which he lives and works.
Europe has given us the most recent important study of public opinion
and its social and historical effects. It is interesting because it
indicates the sweep of the development of an international realization
of what a momentous factor in the world’s life public opinion is
becoming. I feel that this paragraph from a recent work of Professor
Von Ferdinand Tonnies is of particular significance to all who would
feel that the conscious moulding of public opinion is a task embodying
high ideals.
“The future of public opinion,” says Professor Tonnies, “is the future
of civilization. It is certain that the power of public opinion is
constantly increasing and will keep on increasing. It is equally
certain that it is more and more being influenced, changed, stirred by
impulses from below. The danger which this development contains for a
progressive ennobling of human society and a progressive heightening
of human culture is apparent. The duty of the higher strata of
society--the cultivated, the learned, the expert, the intellectual--is
therefore clear. They must inject moral and spiritual motives into
public opinion. Public opinion must become public conscience.”
It is in the creation of a public conscience that the counsel on public
relations is destined, I believe, to fulfill his highest usefulness to
the society in which he lives.
THE END
FOOTNOTES
[1] Cardozo, “The Nature of the Judicial Process” (page 9).
[2] Walter Lippmann, “Public Opinion” (page 248).
[3] “Public Opinion” (page 342). Mr. Lippmann goes on to say that
“having hired him, the temptation to exploit his strategic position is
very great.” As to that aspect of the situation, see later chapters.
[4] William Trotter, “Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War” (page 36).
[5] “Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War,” William Trotter (pages
36–37).
[6] Page 45.
[7] “Public Opinion” (page 350).
[8] _Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1914.
[9] _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1914.
[10] Francis E. Leupp, “The Waning Power of the Press,” _Atlantic
Monthly_, July, 1910.
[11] Rollo Ogden, “Some Aspects of Journalism,” _Atlantic Monthly_,
July, 1906.
[12] “Publicity at Paris,” _New York Times_, April 2, 1922.
[13] H. L. Mencken on Journalism, _The Nation_, April 26, 1922.
[14] “The Behavior of Crowds” (page 193).
[15] W. Trotter, “Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War.”
[16] It should be explained at the very outset that Mr. Trotter does
not use the term “herd” in any derogatory sense. He approaches the
entire subject from the point of view of the biologist and compares the
gregarious instinct in man to the same instinct in lower forms of life.
[17] “Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War” (page 32).
[18] _Ibid._
[19] “Public Opinion” (page 81).
[20] “Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War” (page 38).
[21] _Ibid._ (page 112 _et seq._). Italics mine.
[22] Bleyer, “The Profession of Journalism” (page 269).
[23] “Public Opinion” (page 354).
[24] “Public Opinion” (page 292).
[25] “Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War” (page 62).
[26] Given, “Making a Newspaper” (pages 306–307).
[27] “Press Tendencies and Dangers,” _Atlantic Monthly_, January, 1918.
[28] “The Behavior of Crowds” (pages 23–24).
[29] Walter Lippmann, “Public Opinion.”
[30] Mr. Given’s definition of the qualifications of a good reporter
applies very largely to the qualifications of a good public relations
counsel. “There is undoubtedly a good deal of truth,” says Mr. Given,
“in the saying that good reporters are born and not made. A man may
learn how to gather some kinds of news, and he may learn how to write
it correctly, but if he cannot see the picturesque or vital point of an
incident and express what he sees so that others will see as through
his eyes, his productions, even if no particular fault can be found
with them, will not bear the mark of true excellence; and there is, if
one stops to think, a great difference between something that is devoid
of faults and something that is full of good points. The quality which
makes a good newspaper man must, in the opinion of many editors, exist
in the beginning. But when it does exist, it can usually be developed,
no matter how many obstacles are in the way.”
[31] “Public Opinion” (page 160).
[32] Given, “Making a Newspaper.”
[33] “What Is News?” by Will Irwin, _Collier’s_, March 18, 1911 (page
16).
[34] Italics mine.
[35] “Making a Newspaper” (page 168).
[36] “What is News?” Will Irwin, _Collier’s_, March 18, 1911 (page 16).
[37] “What is News?” by Will Irwin, _Collier’s_, March 18, 1911 (pages
17–18). Italics mine.
[38] “Making a Newspaper,” by Given (pages 59–62).
[39] Given, “Making a Newspaper” (page 57).
[40] “Public Opinion” (pages 339–340).
[41] “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” _Collier’s_, May 6, 1911 (page
18).
[42] “Public Opinion” (page 344).
[43] _Times Book Review and Magazine_, January 1, 1922. “Men Who Wield
the Spotlight,” by Charles J. Rosebault.
[44] “The Behavior of Crowds” (pages 128–129).
[45] “History of the _New York Times_” (pages 379–380).
Transcriber’s Note
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
End of Project Gutenberg's Crystallizing Public Opinion, by Edward L. Bernays