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THE WOMAN'S CLUB AND THE NEWSPAPER; PUBLICITY METHODS ANALYZED
By HAL E. HOSS, President Oregon State Editorial Association
(Last year, Elbert Bede, then president of the Oregon State Editorial Association, delivered such a good talk before the convention of the Oregon Federation of Women’s Clubs that the program committee made a notation that this sort of thing might well be done each year. This year Hal E. Hoss, president of the state association, was called upon, and he came across with something so helpful on the subject of the publicity relations of the woman’s club and the newspaper that Oregon Exchanges makes no apology for devoting three pages of space to it here).
WHEN the chairman of the press
and publicity committee invited
me to fill 20 minutes of her allotted hour
on this program, I felt somewhat dubious
about my ability to gather enough
material for the talk. In a search for
local color and personal contact with the
problems to be discussed I received
wonderful help from the local club just
in time to get organized for this after
noon.
That is, I was made acquainted with one special feature of woman’s club publicity that has a variety of interesting angles. I refer to a special edition of the Oregon City Morning Enterprise, issued under the auspices of the local club on Mother's Day. When it was first presented we heartily agreed to the plan for the women to edit and manage an eight-page section to go with our regular Sunday edition, but due to the aggressiveness and hustle of the adver tising department of the special, it grew fromSto10,from10to12,from12to 20, and from 20 to 22 pages in the final analysis The editorial and news staff kept right up with the business staff with material for their columns, and, in fact, they were a few jumps ahead all the time. A wealth of interesting material was gathered and published in this edition, and to say that it was good publicity for the local club is putting it mildly.
Our experience with this one phase of publicity resulted in two discoveries: that it is a good method (if not worked too frequently) of raising funds for the club; and that it brings latent talent to light. In the news feature and editorial columns of this edition were many ar ticles of great merit—in fact, some of them have been reprinted in the press of the state. Those entrusted with the production of the edition worked hard. The business staff was on the job con sistently, and the way the whole force stuck to their posts leads me to believe that house-work suffered, else we have the super-woman type in our midst. At any rate, I believe that the women of the local club will join me in suggesting the special edition for at least a one time proposition in your city. I take the liberty of referring interested dele gates to those very able women who headed the various departmental activi ties of the edition. In case you put one of these on with your local editor, and he wants to get the story from his side of the fence, ask him to correspond with m%I’ll agree to help pave the way for you.
CLUB NEWS GOOD NEWS
Other phases of newspaper publicity deal more definitely with the reports from day to day or week to week of the activities of the local clubs in the local newspapers. Let me state without any qualifications, that the copy that usually results from club meetings makes desir-
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