TEACHING AND INFORMATION GIVING 59 



local conditions and experience and there must be plenty 

 of personal reference or ''local color." In other words, 

 such a publication may not be a particularly useful means 

 of teaching unless enough attention is given by the agent to 

 the principles of good writing. 



THE LOCAL PRESS 



No publication medium of the organization can take the 

 place of the local press, daily and weekly, as a means of 

 disseminating information. The local papers are probably 

 read regularly by at least three-fourths of the local people. 

 They are the sources of news of all kinds. They are pub- 

 lished regularly and on time daily or weekly as the case 

 may be, and their news is fresh and timely. They are the 

 regularly established community publications and entitled 

 to be the local sources of news so long as they function 

 efficiently. Especially is the local country weekly news- 

 paper a necessary community institution which deserves 

 local support on this basis alone. 



Agricultural information and news should be supplied by 

 the county agent to the local editor as a service to his 

 readers, rather than with the point of view that the local 

 paper is simply a medium to help the county agent do 

 his work, or a charitable institution. The publisher must 

 make a living. To do so he must sell his paper to as many 

 individuals as possible, and to sell his paper he must put in 

 it the news and information which his subscribers want. 

 This should include, if the county agent and the farm 

 bureau are really functioning in the community, news of its 

 plans, what it is doing from week to week and the results 

 of its activities. The editor needs this kind of material to 

 make a good paper and the county agent should furnish it 

 to him for this reason as well as because it also serves his 



