p. 18 | Methods of Publicity by WALTER L. BURGAN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Nov 26, 1914

Methods of Publicity

By WALTER L. BURGAN

A HIGHLY interesting paper on methods of publicity and our need of keeping our work before the world was one of the features of a discussion held in connection with the annual meeting of the Chesapeake Conference, recently held in Baltimore. This paper was compiled and read by Dr. H. N. Sisco, and there are many valuable facts contained in it, which ought to furnish some good food for thought. It reads in part as follows:—

“And now another feature of organization also demands attention, and that is methods of publicity. This people is already accomplishing much through pulpit effort, literature distribution, lay missionary work, religious liberty work, health work, etc., but we must never rest. We live in an age of unparalleled advertising activity. Advertising has nowadays reached the status of a science, and all enterprising social, moral, and religious reform movements are advertising extensively. The purpose of advertising is to mold public opinion. Its watchword is, ‘If you want people to come to you, you must first go to them.’ Dignified publicity measures are therefore essential to the success of any modern propaganda.

“For examples of recent advertising, notice the following: Street meetings are now popular with the evangelical churches in all our large cities. One numerically strong religious denomination at its last annual convention presented a drama of the Reformation, taking care to preface it with remarks concerning its own principles and the growth of its work. Another has recently given itself publicity by a mammoth street parade. One semireligious organization last year spent $65,000 in placing three large posters advocating its principles in each of about four hundred of the largest cities in the land. Another sect has, during the past summer, been making public its views in a large, well-filled auditorium by means of stereopticon slides, moving picture films, and the phonograph. Newspapers in several of our large cities are running every Saturday, with their church notices, a quarter- or a half-page advertisement, stating in a catchy way the principles of some live sociological or religious question.

“But further examples are unnecessary. These have been cited not with the thought of approving or disapproving all or any of them, but with the sole purpose of emphasizing the present wide use of advertising, and the possibilities in this publicity work.

“And this denomination also should be very much alive to every means afforded by modern methods for calling attention to the truths it holds sacred and essential to salvation. It certainly would not be amiss to have what might

be called a publicity committee at many of the centers of our work, whose duty it should be to originate, unify, and correlate proper methods of publicity, so that the denomination might everywhere constitute a mighty, scientifically organized force for the proclamation of truth to the world. Let us organize, then, for the use of modern, dignified, and ever-increasingly efficient methods of publicity — and all for the finishing of the work.”

While workers in various parts of the world are using the newspapers in connection with their efforts, much more ought to be done. There is enough news in our denomination for every one of our union conferences to have its own press bureau, with some one as its head to lead out in a systematic publicity campaign. It is encouraging to learn that new recruits are being added to our corps of reporters, and the message is being heralded over a wide area; yet there are some who would more readily engage in this work if they had some one to visit them and help them in preparing their articles and to give them other assistance.

WALTER L. BURGAN.