The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-10-11

This article deals chiefly with but one phase of publicity, the phase of paid advertising. Its purpose is to encourage all Pres byterian churches to engage sys- tematicaIly in display advertising in their local newspapers Gas some are already doing) and in such other forms Of advertising as may benefit the work of the church.
 Publicity is the inclusive term, embracing all forms of advertis- ing, all forms, indeed, of printed matter. We should think of it as great as such. The church should make the utmost use of every available channel of pub licity as an aid to preaching and teaching in educating the world up to an increasingly better knowledge and acceptance of the Gospel and it's Divine Author. To do this most effectively it is first necessary to cultivate a sense of news and a sense of it's value.
 Every pastor, every church leader, would do well to know newspapers, editors, their tasks, and problems, and to work in CO., operation with them whenever it is possible. The wall is com mon that the newspapers won't publish church news" But they will they do.
 News is the newspapers stock in-trade- Give it news and it will print it.
 Of course space" and "time' are inevitable factors in the making of a newspape Also there are relative values and de- grees of importance and prece- dence between news and news, as between other things. But all things, being equal, newspapers will and do print church news if they get it-and if it really is news.
 Publicity Is Insurance
 Publicity for the church Is simply insurance against the hazard of a misinformed or an uninformed public, just as it is for a public service corporation whose very existence depends up- on public opinion.
 Public opinion when informed is safe, for the mass of the peo- pie at heart are honest and fair, but public opinion when misin- formed is dangerous.
 The public service corporation which fails or neglects to do all ? it can toward giving the public the facts about it's business in evitabIy leads up to trouble which it cannot afford. The public service corporation de- rives it's franchise, that is, it's right to exist, from the public. The public fixes the conditions under which it may operate in cluding it's rates of service and its rates of return.
 Suppose the head of a public service corporation would say that because his company had all of its buildings, machinery, equipment and transmission sys- tems insured against fire and storm it was adequately insured and that there was nothing else for it to do He would be over looking the fact that instead of being insured his company was exposed at and to it's greatest hazard, the hazard of an unin- formed or misinformed public opinion and the only way his company could insure itself against this hazard would be by employing systematic publicity so as to give the public all the facts to which it was entitled re- garding its business.
 The same principle applies with equal force to the church. The church is the greatest of all public service enterprises.
 Even Jesus himself was anx- ious to know what people thought of him. Not that he proposed to patronize them or compromise himself. His anxiety must have rested on the natural and common sense principle that a favorable impression must pre- cede a conversion to any cause.
 The church therefore must employ publicity in every avail able form as it's insurance a-zain<t the onnression of an un-