Page:The Ethics of the Professions and of Business, with a supplement - Modern China and Her Present Day Problems.djvu/205

Rh its advertising columns carry the message of the manufacturers and dealers who are prepared to supply the apparatus necessary for the building of a highway, of the engineers who are expert in highway building, of book publishers who issue treatises on highway construction, of contractors and communities who require men to do the higher grades of work in this field, and many others who need to be brought into touch with possible customers.

This parallelism between the editorial and advertising functions of the business paper involves cooperation between the corresponding departments of the paper, but not collusion for the purpose of giving an advertising tinge to the editorial columns, A danger with respect to the latter does exist and it is a serious one. The existence of this danger has, in fact, been the primary cause of the development of a special code of ethics for business publishers. And a further reason for a code of ethics is that advertisers and subscribers may know that the publishers adhere to high standards which, among other things, prevent improper use being made of the editorial columns.

Of course, the actual editorial standards of reputable business papers have long prohibited the insertion of disguised advertising material such as "puffs," "write-ups" and the like. The terms connote to the editorial mind a group of highly undesirable types of article. However, all editors have not applied the principle to an equal degree and a few papers have not appreciated the extent to which their best success depends upon complete independence of the editorial and advertising columns. The papers "which have adhered to higher standards have been in the majority for many years, but they have not attempted to formulate a code of principles until within a few years past because they have had no way of functioning as an industry. The fact is that industrial publishing has recognized itself as an industry for less than two decades. Before this, although individual papers were provided to meet the needs of different branches of industry, they, like the branches of industry with which they were identified, thought of themselves as isolated units. Gradually, however, industry began to find itself as a national affair and, under the same centripetal forces which have been drawing the several branches of industry together, the related business papers have been drawn together in national organizations. These organizations have been formed to assist in the solution of common problems, to enable the publishers to stand together where their rights and privileges were involved, and to permit the codification of guiding principles which will tend to elevate the standards of service of industrial publications.

One of the salient problems connected with self-improvement in this business has been to determine the point of view from which industrial papers should be published. One might as well frankly face the fact that there were, and are still, two radically different points of view. From one, industrial publishing is considered primarily as a business, the service feature being secondary or incidental. The other point of view is that in which the principal stress is laid on service to the industry in all its various phases, the advertising being included as part of the service. In this case, the profits of the business