Free Publicity

NZ Truth, Issue 1211, 14 February 1929, Page 6

Free Publicity

Madness

TN many ways it is unfortunate that publicity has developed into a science.

This may seem an extraordinary declaration, and it would be, too, if confined sweepingly to those elements which go towards the construction of a mouthpiece of mercantile organisations. Publicity, properly harnessed and guided by the prudent reins of executive responsibility, is, indeed, a most desirable instrument, but the very reverse when irresponsibility and loose control are m evidence.

These observations arise sharply m the minds of those who intelligently analyse the processes through which topical events pass from day to day, and there must have been borne upon them -the realisation that if private individuals, athletes and others continue to receive broadcast announcements of their individual prowess at the present rate and volume, m fifty years personal pronouns like "I" and "WE" will cease to be correct among the better circles of the elect.

Everything/ — notoriety, our favorite breakfast food, the number of times we have not visited Monte Carlo, and so on — must be spelled with capital letters if we have one more beat to our swim-

ming crawl than someone else m some other province or continent, until we find ourselves with heads that ache from onslaughts made by the widening levers of Publicity.

A few years ago, sportsmen of the 'nineties viewed with apprehension what they dubbed the "pot-hunting" flare which crept into the psychology of young, athletes.

Rightly, newspaper criticism became alight with the declaration that sport was going out of sportsmanship, that the spirit of personal endeavor for the game's .sake had retrograded into a feverish anxiety to see one's name engraved upon a shelf-full of trophies. Nowadays, we do things more subtly. We have developed our notoriety sense, and while at one time we hid our athletic lights beneath convenient bushels, we now hoist them to the mountaintops, boost them -with high voltages, then tell the world about

ourselves through the deft agency of Publicity's magic fountain pen.

Many stunts, ill-advised and badly organised, are boosted and advertised to an extent that is merely disgusting. Quite often they fail to achieve anything beyond miserable failure, and m order to justify the sorry business adherents of sport are overwhelmed with a stream ■ of subsequent' excuses and explanations.

It is conceded that where a man or woman has merited distinction then, the facile ways of newspaper publicity should judiciously be laid open, engraving the name of the particular forerunner upon the rugged stone of memory, but m such a manner which, while freed from the hot vapors of unlicensed penmanship, will yet spur the flanks of those whb seek anew to follow the trail./

Far le?<j penmanship, and a good deal more sportsmanship, m sooth !