The Ethics of Industrial Publishing
By Henry H. Norris
Managing Editor, Electric Railway Journal
Within twenty-five years past the publishing of that type of class periodicals known as industrial papers has grown to be a business of large proportions. While exact statistics are not available, the volume of annual business is at least $50,000,000 and more than 1,400 publications are issued. These are mainly of two varieties: trade or merchandising papers and technical papers, but there are others of a more general character while still lying within the industrial field.
Peculiar Nature of Industrial Publishing
The publishing of business papers differs in many particulars from newspaper publishing. While their essential functions of gathering, disseminating and interpreting information are the same, the relation between the publishers on the one hand, and their subscribers and advertisers on the other, is not the same. The industrial publication reaches a class of readers who have special trade or technical interests, and it serves them along the lines of these interests. The newspapers are addressed to readers of many kinds and with a wide range of interests. Every worthwhile industrial publication, therefore, occupies a position as teacher and leader to a group of specialists, which is small in number compared with the subscription lists of the newspapers and general magazines of similar standing.
Because the clientele of the business paper is small, the range being roughly two thousand to twenty times that number, the publisher and his staff can maintain intimate contact with their circle of readers. In fact, such a relation must be maintained if the efforts of their publication are to succeed. He and his associates are active and occupy leading positions in the industrial organizations in the field of their paper, and they spend much of their time in visiting the important centers of activity in their specific industry. As a result they are personally acquainted with large numbers of their subscribers, including practically all of those who are leaders of thought and action among them.
The relation of the business paper publisher to his advertisers is also an intimate one. The publisher is in a position to sense the marketing and even the production problems of the advertisers, due to the necessarily wide scope of his vision of the particular industry which they are trying to serve with their products. He thus can advise as to the form and matter of advertising copy, as well as the general features of advertising campaigns and detail plans.
The intimate relation which exists between the business paper publisher and his clientele has rendered desirable, and in fact necessary, a special code of ethics to cover his case. Not only is this true for the reasons already explained, but also, and particularly, because there is a close relation between the editorial and advertising columns of his paper. The editorial and advertising departments are fundamentally addressed to the same people, for the same purpose. This is to enable the subscribers to do their work better and more economically. Thus, when a highway paper explains editorially how to build a satisfactory roadway,
