EDUCATIONAL PUBLICITY 993 



In a number of systems some particular member of the staff, especially 

 one who may have had newspaper experience or who has a talent for pub- 

 licity, is designated to handle the publicity in connection with his other 

 duties. 



In the larger and more highly developed park system such a method 

 of organizing and carrying on publicity is more or less a makeshift. Publicity 

 is today a distinct profession just as forestry, landscape gardening and the 

 conduct of organized recreation are professions. It should have a definite 

 divisional position in the department with a director of educational pub- 

 licity in charge. Where there are two departments in a community a 

 park department and recreation department the employment of such a 

 director might conceivably be a joint project. While it is desirable that 

 such a director be skilled in newspaper technique, more than this should be 

 required, for his real function is to educate the community in the values 

 of recreation and the special opportunities afforded for recreation by the 

 department and by other agencies in the community, and in the use of 

 the facilities offered. In a sense he must combine the functions of an expert 

 investigator and interpreter of community institutions and community 

 recreational needs with that of the educational publicist. 



Duties of the Educational Publicity Director. 



1. A publicity director should keep himself intimately informed of the 

 details of the activities of every division of the park department. Workers 

 on the firing line engrossed in the details of organizing and conducting their 

 divisions are not always conscious of the news value of the things they are 

 doing nor do they often have the time to interpret what they are doing 

 even if they are conscious of the interest of their program to the public. 



2. He should be thoroughly conversant with every agency and insti- 

 tution in the community making a contribution to the city's recreational 

 life, studying the work of these institutions to see how their programs may 

 be correlated with the work of the park department. He should be familiar 

 with certain general community conditions relative to juvenile delinquency, 

 health and working conditions and cultural conditions so that he will know 

 better where to put the emphasis in publicity regarding these conditions, 

 if the services of the park department may in any way be made to affect 

 the situation. 



3. It should be his responsibility to organize and conduct any or all 

 the various lines of publicity mentioned and others not specifically outlined. 



It is hardly necessary to suggest that the publicity director should keep 

 the chief executive intimately informed of all that he plans to do. Publicity 

 can often do as much harm to a cause as it does good if it is ill-timed or 



