Public-relations work not limited to private enterprise

The discussion so far in this Text, as will have been noted, has been confined primarily to the public-relations problems and practices of private enterprise. Much public-relations work, however, is carried on in other fields of endeavor which are chiefly of a public nature. Public-relations work in such fields is similar in character to that carried on in the interests of private enterprise, and, in general, the same rules are applicable in both fields.

This may be seen from a few brief illustrations of public-relations work in public fields. In a local community, for instance, the clerk of the board of trustees issues a public statement concerning the projected budget for the coming year. In more or less detail, and more or less convincingly, his statement explains why more funds will be needed. In the state capital, the Governor addresses the annual meeting of the State Chamber of Commerce and, for the public's enlightenment, outlines his ideas about the relationship between government and union labor. In Washington, the press secretary of the President of the United States announces to the White House correspondents that the President is preparing his traditional report to Congress on the state of the Union, and that in the report he will clarify his administration's policies concerning displaced persons.

In the daily newspaper, it is announced that a state university has developed and made available for use without charge by other institutions of learning a new machine, called the "Econorama," for teaching economics. Another item in the newspaper carries the news that the community's general hospital is raising funds to build a home for its nurses. Through the public prints, announcements are also made of undertakings projected by the Red Cross, the Community Chest, the Cancer Committee, the Heart Committee, the YMCA, the Boy Scouts, the 4-H Club, and, perhaps by the local ministerial association or council of churches.

Underlying principles the same in public fields

In the main, public fields of endeavor apply to their public-relations problems the same techniques as those used by private enterprise. This is because the same basic principles underlie both areas of endeavor. In the case of both, the purpose is to operate along lines of conduct worthy of public approval and support, and to make achievements and objectives publicly known. Although in certain respects, the fields of public endeavor still lag behind private enterprise in the development and execution of pre-planned public relations programs, there has been one outstanding development since World War I. That is the growth of the public-relations work of the Federal Government.

Federal Government public-relations work

There was a time when practically the only Federal official who concerned himself to any appreciable extent with how the public regarded him was the executive who, at the time, occupied the White House. Furthermore, from administration to administration, the extent to which the Chief Executive so concerned himself depended upon his personality and his idiosyncrasies.

Formerly, one President might adopt and adhere to the principle that the press was a nuisance and undertake to ignore it. Another of the hail-fellow-well-met type might take the press to his bosom and, lacking objective guidance about what to say and how to say it, incur the risk of seeming shallow and, at times, ridiculous. Still another President, playing favorites among the correspondents, and thus incurring the of those whom he slighted, might expose himself to bitter editorial criticism. In recent years, however, the Executive Mansion has operated, public-relations-wise, as might the executive offices of a private business concern. As a matter of routine, its public-relations functions are assigned to a press secretary and his staff.

In addition, throughout the entire Federal Government, public-relations men, constantly growing in number and in the scope of their activities have been at work in many directions on the task of keeping the public informed, as well as of trying to keep the public satisfied with what government is doing. In governmental bureaus, agencies, commissions and authorities, and in the armed services as well, numerous public-relations people are employed. Although these people are usually referred to as "public information" officers, nevertheless they are, in the final analysis, public-relations workers.

Illustration of Federal public-relations work

An example of the expansion of public-relations work by the Federal Government is the development of the Office of Aviation Information in the Civil Aeronautics Administration. Here the effort has been to attain good public relations for a governmental agency, not through the medium of "sales talk" publicity, but by serving the public through the dissemination of information useful to the public.

Broadly, the CAA's public relations objective, as directed by the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, has been to "foster and encourage the development of civil aviation." The agency undertook to attain that objective by setting up machinery for channeling aviation information to servicemen, veterans, state and local officials, foreign governments, commercial interests, and the press.

On a budget relatively small, and with limited personnel, the Office of Aviation Information undertook to bring aviation, so to speak, down to earth. Acting upon the principle that flying is not an art reserved for supermen, the agency simplified and streamlined its literature so as to bring its context within the range of understanding of the common man. Thus, what had been a 245-page textbook entitled "Practical Air Navigation" became a thirty-two page manual with the interest-provoking title, "Path of Flight." "Practical Air Navigation" had sold for a dollar a copy. "Path of Flight" sold for forty cents.

Not content with improving existing "literature," the CAA publication initiated new material, and published "Civil Aviation and the National Economy." This was a booklet which sold for fifty-five cents, and represented the first comprehensive study of civil aviation's economic status and potentialities. This booklet, besides functioning as a public-information piece in itself, provided CAA's staff members with source materials for speeches, news stories, and magazine articles.

Employment, airports, statistics

Early in its operations, the CAA's program directed its attention to the employment outlook in civil aviation and, for servicemen and others who were considering a career in flying or in the operation of airports and airlines, it explored the field's potentialities and made its findings public. In addition, it looked into the matter of airport planning, and also issued a report on that subject.

Furthermore, as a public service, the agency compiled and published a "Statistical Handbook of Civil Aviation." This was a publication in which was collected, for the first time, statistical information that had not been obtainable formerly except through special inquiry or special research.

Services for veterans

In its Current Information Division, the ,CAA established a section to serve veterans of the armed services. This section soon found itself not only serving veterans who called in person to ask questions, but also answering hundreds of inquiries that came by telephone. Although, generally speaking, all government literature that is offered for sale is dispensed at cost through the Government Printing Office, the CAA established a policy of distributing all its inexpensive material to men in overseas service free of charge.

Information for foreign use

At the end of World War II, the CAA's Office of Aviation Information looked abroad. Foreign countries had seen American aviation in action. With the close of hostilities, the civil aviation branch of the United States Government proceeded to stimulate foreign interest in American aeronautical methods and equipment by extending its information service overseas. Thus, to aeronautical interests in Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, the agency distributed a pioneering "Glossary of Aeronautical Terms." This served as the first step toward bringing about better aeronautical relationships with the neighboring nations to the south.

A pattern of action

Although the CAA's program was adapted to its own specific needs, it represented a pattern of action that has been duplicated in other departments and agencies of the Federal Government and, to a degree, in state and local governments as well.

Typical among the states are public-relations programs, sometimes operated by conservation departments, that aim at two objectives:

1. Conserving natural resources
2. Inducing people to know and enjoy those resources

Typical, too, among the states are tourist bureaus, set up to publicize the states' advantages as places to visit and spend vacations. In many cases also, a state operates a department of commerce which, in seeking to induce industries to establish themselves within its borders, serves the state in the capacity of a chamber of commerce, thus contributing to the economic interests of local communities.

Programs for cities

Increasingly, too, public-relations departments and programs are being established for cities. In fact, there has been such a development in this respect that municipal public-relations workers have organized. As is set forth in its constitution, the general objective of the Association of Municipal Public-Relations Officers is "to aid in combating civic inertia and strengthening municipal democracy by making government operations more understandable." Specifically, the aims of the association are as follows:

• To provide a clearing house for the exchange of information and experience in municipal public relations.
• To stimulate the growth of official municipal public relations through organized leadership and action.
• To promote public and official understanding of the functions and principles of municipal public relations.
• To encourage recognition of the municipal public-relations profession as a non-political activity of government.

While, many municipalities are not in a position to attain all those objectives all at once, a substantial number has entered public-relations work in a limited way by establishing the post of public-relations director and appointing to the post a qualified ex-newspaperman. Even single-handedly, such a laborer in the vineyard can accomplish much.

Programs for institutions

Typically, and on scales suited to their needs and within their resources, public and charitable institutions and organizations engage in public-relations work all the time. Organizations such as the Red Cross and those established to fight cancer and heart disease maintain full-time public-relations staffs whose scope of operations is nationwide and even worldwide.

A local hospital may be large enough to run a program on its own. In other cases, it may join with other hospitals in the community to operate a program cooperatively in a concerted effort to gain the community's moral and financial support. In still other cases, hospitals may make use of the services of organizations which are available to public and charitable institutions for carrying out their money-raising programs. On a fee or percentage basis, these organizations will take over a complete fund-raising campaign and supervise the whole operation from the opening rally-meeting to the publication of the campaign's results.

Public-relations work of universities

For universities and colleges, public-relations work has become a specialized vocation. In a typical university setup, the public-relations director and his staff may aim at the major objective of making the school better through developing good public relations with three principal "publics":

1. The people of the state, particularly the taxpayers if the university is tax-supported
2. Prospective students
3. Prospective donors of funds for endowments, or for the establishing of "chairs" in special lines of study, or for the creation of scholarships for deserving students and of fellowships in certain lines of research.

Furthermore, in a typical university public-relations set-up, there is specialized work. For instance, there is likely to be at least one public-relations worker who devotes all his time to making better known his school's athletic prowess –its achievements, hopes and potentialities on the gridiron, the baseball diamond and the basketball court. The fact is that, regardless of the academic aspects of the matter, many a young man who harbored no athletic aspirations for himself has gone to Michigan, not because of Michigan's scholastic status in law, medicine or engineering, but because so many times Michigan has been in the public eye on account of its great football teams.

Public-relations work of churches

There is one area of modern-day living in which sound public-relations practice has not yet been permitted to exert its full, beneficial effect. That is the area of religion. Churches have lagged in the development of public-relations work. In part, this lack of progress has been due to the feeling that, between the secular and the spiritual aspects of life, certain lines of demarcations must be maintained. It is true that not every policy and every method which is proper for business is proper for the church. There are, however, some policies and methods which are appropriate for churches to use, and the failure of churches to do so to a wider extent than they have may be ascribed to a lack of experience in public-relations work. A clergyman is not a press agent; nor should he be expected to be.

Religion in American Life campaign

It has been demonstrated, nevertheless, by the nationwide, interfaith movement known as Religion in American Life that local religious leaders can be brought together in a concerted effort that increases the attendance at churches and synagogues, and strengthens materially the people's support of their religious institutions.

An outgrowth of the United Church Canvass, Religion in American Life enlisted in 1949 the "full-allocation" support of The Advertising Council. Established by business men during World War II to operate in the public interest, The Advertising Council is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization supported and operated by advertisers, advertising agencies, and advertising-media groups. Through its "allocation" plan, the Council is able to enlist in a public cause the services of top-flight specialists in the techniques of mass-appeal, together with the donated facilities of the media of mass communication–radio, television, newspapers, out-door-poster boards, and street-car advertising cards.

Sponsored jointly by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, the American Synagogue Council, and eighteen other religious bodies, the Religion in American Life campaign was formally opened by President Truman, speaking from the White House over a four-network radio hook-up.

RIAL publicity and promotion

Meanwhile, directed from national headquarters in New York, a public-relations program, designed to underscore and accentuate the Religion in American Life campaign's over-all effect at the community level moved into action. Well in advance of the opening of the period of special emphasis –the three weeks preceding Thanksgiving–there went to local religious leaders a manual of instructions and suggestions for local publicity and promotional campaigns.

Specifically, the manual explained how a local ministerial association or council of churches could obtain help from the following media of communication:

1. The local press through publicity and through "allocated" and sponsored advertising
2. Local radio stations
3. Streetcar advertising cards
4. Special displays in the windows of merchants
5. Outdoor-poster boards
6. The staging of rallies and other news-creating events

Proclamations by officials

From headquarters, a letter signed by the Religion in American Life campaign's general chairman went to the governor of every state, asking him to mention the campaign in his Thanksgiving Day proclamation. Thirty-two of the governors did so, while one governor, Frederick G. Payne, of Maine, on his own initiative, saw to it that a release in which he endorsed the campaign went to every newspaper and radio station in his state.

Communities swing into line

As the campaign message, "Find Yourself Through Faith: Come to Church This Week," went out to millions of Americans on a nation-wide coverage by the mass media, communities to the number of more than 1,000 swung into line with local, supporting campaigns. Armed with material that went to them from campaign headquarters in the form of informative bulletins and additional promotional material, local religious leaders in communities from coast to coast marshaled their communities' manpower and put the material to excellent use.

Results of the RIAL campaign

To measure the effects of such a campaign in terms of statistics would obviously be impossible. However, a "spot check" after the campaign had closed revealed results that were downright dramatic. For example, historic Petersburg, Virginia, in which thirty-five Christian churches and the Jewish synagogue joined hands, reported that during the first two weeks of the campaign 5,000 more persons attended divine worship than had attended during the same period of the year before. Other communities reported increases as high as 100 per cent, while a few had gains of 200 per cent.

Fruits of planning

In a large measure, the Religion in American Life campaign's success rested upon the efforts of local campaign leaders. In a measure, however, that success rested upon careful and thoroughgoing over-all planning. There were set up certain governing principles which stipulated that the campaign would move toward two major objectives:

1. To emphasize the importance of religion and religious institutions
2. To urge all Americans to attend and support the churches and synagogues of their choice

Furthermore, to avoid scattering of effort, within the framework of the governing principles, there was set up a "copy platform" of pre-selected "selling points" about religion and religious institutions. It was determined in advance that the campaign would concentrate on and drive home these "selling points," and no others. Expressed or implied, each of those points, or combinations of them, became the theme of virtually every promotional piece, every suggested newspaper editorial, and every suggested newspaper release which the national headquarters sent to the community leaders.

An example for business

Although it was previously stated that in public-relations understanding and public-relations practice, the church has lagged behind business, Religion in American Life seems to have turned the tables. In any event, its public-relations program presents an object lesson which cannot be overlooked even by the public-relations worker whose field of operations is wholly material and wholly secular. Any national public-relations campaign, if it is to be a success, must have the three following characteristics of that religious campaign:

1. Pre-planning that mapped out specific objectives, examined the "story" for its strongest appeals, enlisted the aid of every agency that could help, and, in accordance with a pre-planned schedule, carried through.
2. Provision of material and a planned program of action for local use.
3. Integration of the national effort and the local effort for the production of maximum results.

The Religion in American Life program did not even overlook the value of maintaining good public relations with the press and other disseminators of information. This may be seen from the concluding paragraph of the manual of instructions which went to local campaign leaders before the campaign opened. That paragraph read as follows:

Finally, by letter, over the telephone, or in person, express your appreciation for cooperation extended to your churches during the campaign by your merchants, newspapers, radio stations, outdoor-poster and car-card advertising companies and all others who help you make the campaign the success that, with your local effort, it ought to be and will be.

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