Illinois newspaper directory. History of the Illinois press association

Illinois Ni wspaper Diki ctory and Historysoon forget the inspiration these men brought to the meeting but these talks alone werenot sufficient justification for the meeting. That meeting was called for a definitepurpose. Ideas presented were sound, workable and practical enough to make themapplicable to every newspaper represented in this organization. It was at the midyearsession that suggestions as to public utility and political advertising were firstconsidered. The February meeting was, of course, the most general of all sessions ofthe association during the year. In addition there have been several group meetings.These in most cases were for the discussion of local problems, and active membersattending those meetings will remember the discussion of matters affecting their owndistricts."The largest of these district meetings was the one held in connection with theExecutive Committee meeting in Springfield in August. Here again the subjects ofpublic utility and political advertising were discussed and a Committee, composed ofyour president, secretary and chairman of the Executive Committee, was appointedto get in touch with heads of political party organizations and public utility companies.PoliticalAdvertising"This Committee did everything in its power to induce a proper consideration ofthe advertising columns of the newspapers on the part of candidates and heads ofparty organizations. You, no doubt, have not been satisfied with the results obtained.I am quite sure that I am not. Unfortunately, partisan politicians still feel that theycan depend upon their party newspapers to a certain extent to present the merits oftheir platforms and representatives to the public. This, added to the fact that campaignfunds were extremely limited this year, made the work of this Committee doublydifficult."As I stated before, this political advertising committee was appointed in Augustof this year. It should have been appointed at least two years earlier and should havecontained a much larger personnel in order that a more thorough job of solicitationmight have been done.So-Called Free Publicity"The same thing that applies to political publicity applies to all other forms ofmaterial which come to the desk of the newspaper editor as a result of the activitiesof enterprising press agents who show their clients the fallacy of buying newspaperspace when it can be obtained without cost. It has been aptly stated that this typeof material is neither free nor publicity until it appears in your columns. I havebecome sick and tired of reading in the trade press of 'The free publicity chamber ofhorrors' when the onlv way to stop such practices lies within the province of an unitedpress. Place yourself for the moment in the position of a manufacturer, let us say, forexample, the American Tobacco Company. Let a publicity bureau representative cometo you and say, 'We can get you 180,000 inches of publicity for SI 800.' This wouldbe at the rate of 1c per inch. What would you do? Yes, and that is exactly what you shoulddo. The advertiser seeking to get before the public the merchandise which he has tooffer cannot be fairly criticized for adopting the most economical method. He canbe stopped in his space-grafting activities only when the newspapers, by refusing hisproffered releases, make paid advertising the more economical and satisfactory methodof reaching the buyer.