Verhovayak Lapja, 1945 (28. évfolyam, 1-52. szám)
1945 / Verhovay Journal
September 26, 1945 VERHOVAY = —— HYDE PARK (Continued from Page 6) fore this writer maintains that the above mentioned writers should have their contributions also cut down. b) Since, however, these “writers” have acquired more or less of a'name for themselves in the journal peftiaps their talents (?) could be turned to feature writing and those of them who fail at this would probably then become reconciled to their half column allotment of branch news. IV. CONCERNING LONGCONTINUED ARTICLES a) No matter how well they are written, or how interesting the subject matter—continued articles are unattractive because the average reader does not build up a sufficient interest in an article to want to wait for another installment. Most nearly all of the time, the reader will have lost interest in a subject by the time another installment is printed. Even if he sets about to read it, he will have by that time, forgotten so much about it that to maintain continuity of the article he will have to refer to the preceding installment. Chances are that by that time the issue containing the preceeding installment will be misplaced or destroyed. b) Even in the largest papers in the country, (that are printed DAILY) it is only on rare occapsions that articles are continued. And it is on much rarer occasions that the continued articles are of suck importance and interest that the average reader follows them faithfully. c) In the event that an article is sufficiently important to warrant continuation it should then be written in such a way that each seperate installment is complete and entire in itself, be able to stand alone, not have to depend on a preceeding or suceeding installment to make it readable, comprehensive, and journalworthy. * * * Dear “Difk”: I am glad that you made up your mind to work on these ideas of yours. I believe that a discussion of your proposals may be of interest to our readers. Naturally, it would have been difficult to present them without any editorial comments. As you and your readers will see, there are several items .which must be considered in the light of the possibilities as they are known in Verhovay circles. The best idea will be to discuss your suggestions in the order of your letter. In regards to the “General” introduction, I agree with you fully that people like to see their names in print and that their interest can be maintained by giving them continuous publicity. Let’s See how your suggestions would work in the case of our Journal. 1.) It always has been the ambition of your editor to receive as many news-items from the branches as possible. The officers of the branches had been requested and encouraged many a time to send in their news or have someone—with at least a semblance of writing ability—report regularly. It did not work up to this date. The sad fact is that only about 10% of our. branches report occasionally and only -4.% regularly. These percentages include both, our Hungarian and American branches. If we consider them separately we find to our great surprise that the AMERICAN BRANCHES ARE LESS INTERESTED than the Hungarians, in using the opportunity afforded them by the Journal for the publishing of their news. This is difficult to understand in view of the fact that the membership of the American, English speaking branches had the benefit of a higher education, generally speaking, than the average fnembership of our Hungarian branches. It isn’t that the members are not interested in the Journal. It can be proven by the reactions of the members that the Journal is read by the great majority; yet, there seems to be a hesitancy towards writing for the Journal, that is! impossible to explain. Nevertheless, we are not discouraged. We are working in the direction suggested by you and we hope that, by personal contacts with the members of the various branches, we will be able to develop a staff of reporters. It is another matter, however, whether the publishing of as many names as possible (“no matter how trivial the item”) will really increase the popularity of the Journal. Let’s not forget that the Journal serves a double purpose. One is to use it as a means for the retaining of our members. But the other is to awaken the interest of non-members in the Association. The plan, as suggested by you, would make the Journal a continuous conglomeration of personal items that would be of no interest to the outsider. It would hardly be possible to publish articles pertaining to our fraternal activities, informative articles concerning insurance problems and other write-ups on problems of general interest. Yet, these seem to be the most efficient door-openers. Several articles on general problems actually have attracted quite a number of prospects who voluntarely requested to be accepted as members. Many of our editorials had been reprinted by national insurance and fraternal magazines which, thereby, gave the stamp of approval to the Journal as a source of much-needed information. On the other hand, PUBLIC RESENTMENT often made itself felt because of the publishing of TRIVIAL items which were published upon request by the writer. It seems, therefore, that, from the editor’s point of view, there is a substantial difference between an army newspaper and a fraternal Journal which has a national circulation. The policy which worked well in the army where a rather close group was served, may not work as well in a fraternal Association the members of Which are scattered all over the country. On the basis of response received by this editor, it seems! that personal items have their place in the Journal only if they are of general interest. This policy was consistently followed in the editing of the Journal. We have given a great publicity to our soldiers, in pictures as well as stories, because such material attracted everyone’s interest. We also give much publicity to outstanding achievements of members engaged in patriotic and/or fraternal activities. These things are of interest to all true patriots and fraternalists. On the other hand, if we start Verhovay Journal Page 7 SHE LL GO TO COLLEGE! Little Sharon Ruth Wilkie can’t say so yet, but she is a member of the Verhovay, Branch 443, Detroit, Mich. Her father, Mr. Clarence W. Wilkie, assistant manager of the Detroit National Bank, and Mrs. Wilkie, gave a fine example of family planning when applying for an H-J membership certificate through branch manager Joseph Szabó. Little Sharon won’t go to college for a few years yet but her happy parents already have taken the first step. Jftnd that's the time to do it .. . not when the young lady has grown up and starts feeling bitter about not being able to realize her ambitions due to the lack of foresight on part of her parents- Truthfully, though, we believe that Mr. Wilkie would make it possible for his daughter to enter college, anyhow, but we chose this approach for presenting her picture because we believe it’s a good “sales-point” for our excellent “educational” membership certificate. And while in baby Sharon’s case the H-J. certificate may not make the difference between entering college or not, in many a member’s case it’s just the lack of such a membership certificate that puts an end to hope and ambition. . . Welcome, little Sharon Ruth in the Verhovay family! to fill our columns with names and trivial items (like: A. spends his vacation in Atlantic City; B., got engaged; C., attended the meeting and moved that it be adjourned; B., found a rare stamp for his collection; E., lost his wallet, etc. etc.) would make our Journal read like a telephonebook. We have seen papers like that but few really read them except those mentioned and since it would be impossible to have the names of all of the members published in the Journal, the majority would be left out anyhow, or, by the time their names would be published, they would have lost interest altogether. The situation is altogether different in the army. The units of a division, or regiment, are interested in one another as well as in themselves. What happens to the individual, happens to the entire unit. Jones’ wife gave birth to a baby ... everyone rejoices with him ... Smith’s1 wife didn’t write since months ..., everyone tries to comfort him. The situation is not the same in civilian life. Newspapers, magazines of all sort, have an immense circulation regardless of the fact that they never mention their readers’ names. It is the contents of a Journal that make it interesting or dull... the more local stuff it includes, the less interest it will have to readers outside of the locality to which it refers. It is true that people like to see their names in print, but let us not forget, and this is most important, that this ISN’T THE ONLY THING that interests them! In the case of the Verhovay it seems to be preferable to make more use of such material that may claim general interest, while a local paper may find it more profitable to fill its columns with personal items. Let’s put it this way: we think it is more advantageous to publish a “VERHOVAY WHO’S WHO?” than a telephone-book. Poeple will go to great lengths to have their name appear in the “Who’s Who?”—they may even engage in fraternal activities, if that’s the price they have to pay to be mentioned in the Journal— but they will not do anything if they find that Tom, Dick and Harry are also mentioned, “no matter how trivial the item.” I don’t quite believe that it was entirely different in the army: either something had to happen to the guy, or he must have had done something before his name was mentioned in the paper. Nobody’s name could have been published just because he happened to be inducted ... I feel that it was necessary to go to such lengths in answering the first paragraph because thereon depend the others. 2.) CLOSE SUPERVISION. You say that close supervision by the branch-manager or president should include the four considerations mentioned in your letter. You object to having a clique, certain group, or individual constantly written about. I believe that we all agree on that. The question, however, is not the one raised by you but that of how to put an end to that? You feel that the manager ör president should see to that? But don’t you see that in quite a number of cases it is the manager and/or president who is the head of that clique? Who’s going to do the protective supervising? You insist that no one be unnecessarily flattered and there, too, I agree with you. But isn’t mentioning the greatest possible number of members flattering, and in most instances, unnecessary, too? The editor certainly does not indulge ini flottering but how can he decide whether or not his contributor is flattering someone? Then you strangely and surprisingly demand that unethical and unsportsmanlike remarks are not made. When and where were such remarks made? We are certainly not pursuing unethical editorial policies and if there ever was a contributor who did make some unsportsmanlike remarks, we always tried to4 neutralize them by explaining the misunderstanding which may have led the writer to the burning-up point. The same goes for debatable issues which ultimately evolve into a matter of personalities. We tried to avoid such issues and to our best knowledge such had not been brought up for years. II. REWRITE MEN In order that the many contributions to be written be properly edited, the services of two rewrite men would be required. Well now, this is a debatable issue on two counts. First, ours is a fraternal association and not the armj. Therefore, we have to keep an eye on expenses, too. It was for this reason that the Board of Directors decided to have one editor for both the Hungarian and the English Journal. If we would add two more men to the staff, We would increase the expenses to be incurred by the publishing of the Journal to such an extent that the next Convention Would vote the Journal out of existence. The second count pertains to the person of the present editor who is considered well trained and equipped to act as rewrite man... This is not his first journalistic job ... But the main issue is this: as often as not he has to write and fill the entire Journal and more often than not about 75% of the space. It really doesn’t make any difference to him—as far as the amount of work and time consumed is concerned—whether his own articles are published or those of the hoped-for contributors. The fact is, that rewriting is easier than writing for in the former he has to produce the thought-content as well as the text. And he has had so much journalistic experience that he finds no difficulty in imitating jnost anyone’s individual style—if necessary. II. A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR... ♦ It is interesting that you expect contributors to feel encouraged by courteously worded rejections and well-meant suggestions that would be added. I am sorry to say that I never had this experience though I had the pleasure to edit quite a few papers in my life-time. My experience is simply that a rejected contribution will rarely result in a better ong. It is only, the talented, the professional writer who will make another try, the amateur will simply drop the whole thing and blame the editor for being prejudiced and partial. Do you realize how contributors hate the editor even for changing the wording, of some of their sehtences? Do you realize how unjustly treated they feel if their stuff is curteously returned? Only the real writer knows his limitations, the amateur is convinced that no one could do the stuff better than he. It never failed during my experience as editor of the Journal... pne single, solitary exception granted. No matter how rich in excellent advice the letter may be, the contributor cannot think of anything but of the essential “No!”—that prompted its writing. And there goes another would-be contributor...! The two sub-paragraphs to this section of your letter suggest the subsequent curtailing of the space allotted to the present contributors and their promoting to feature writers in the way of compensation. What do our features deal with? They deal with fraternal problems, insurance situations and conditions of general interest, in their relationship to the Verhovay. I am perfectly willing to grant both, talent and ability to our contributors, but it is another question whether or not they are equipped, “trained” for the writing of such stuff. A branch-manager is not necessarily an insurance expert and a contributor does not always know everything there is to know about fraternal principles. In this respect we are only beginning our educational program. Writing about such problems, without having acquired the proper information, will result in failure. It happened in the past more (Continued on Page 8)
