The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-09-24
PUBLICITY IS ONLY VALUABLE
 F SCIENTIFIC
Prominent Bank Manager Gives Outline of How and
 When It is Worth While.
By Temple

The following is a digest of ad- dress delivered by James l. Clarke, Manager of the Service apartment of the National Bank of Commerce in New York. at the annual convention of the Financial Advertisers Associ- alton in New Orleans, September A.
 New Orleans, Sept. 24-PubIicity for American corporations Is Iegiti- mate only when 1t is based on public interest in the formation it contains, l. was declared by James | Clarke, Manager of the Service Department of the National Bank of Commerce in New York, in an address given at the annual convention of the F'ian- cial Advertisers Association here to- day. When built upon this principle il is not only a guide post to clear thinking set up for the public, but a contribution to the success of the newspaper that publishes it. The benefit to the institution whose name becomes an essential part of the news value should rightly be incl dental, although for that very reason more certain, lasting and dignified. MT Clarke said in part
 Publicity should be built from the viewpoint of the newspapers to which it goes rather than the corpor- ation from which 1t comes. Publicity that is not based on public interest is not worth getting; on the other hand, the publicity that really grips the public's attention because it in- terests them is beyond price. The publicity man, when he has some thing to release. should, so to speak, get up from his des walk out of
 
 of his job out of his system and then come back in the attitude of a keen nosed reporter looking for news. Then he can sit down and write his story with the proper perspective.
 Legitimate publicity seeks to in form the public, not to sell them. If your company is not doing things big enough and important enough to have a legitimate claim on the news interest of the public, the cor pOration doesn't deserve publicity. It should advertise and pay for it. The ideal piece of publicity, is one con- taining matter of such great public interest and importance that no live editor will dare turn it down for fear of being placed in the position of hay ing been beaten. The least a, release can do is to contain a news germ of 
 run, the publicity man who keeps his publicity clean, who himself submits to it as drastic and searching a news judgment as a disinterested editor who sees only his public, will profit by his own rigorousness. It will re- suit both in raising the tone of his output and in improving the recepti- witty felt toward it on editors desks.
 Free publicity so called, should be founded on a bedrock of paid ad- vertising but the hand that signs the advertising contracts should not fol- low the hand that deals out the news. I have enough faith in American Journalism to believe firmly that our worth while periodicals print news be- cause it is news and advertising be- cause it is paid for. In so doing they give true service to both advertiser and reader. Free publicity is not free in the sense that it does not cost money. It has been my own exper- fence that the overhead charge on an item of free publicity usually runs higher than the overhead charge on an advertisement even though art work plates and electrotypes are included in the overhead for the lat ter.