Exhibit in the column

The pattern

This still is filed under Exhibit in the column.

Define

An image is dropped into the column of type so the reader meets picture and argument in one scan.

Mechanism

In-flow exhibit. The figure is not a separate see fig. 2. It starts the paragraph. Eye and mind start together.

Verdict

Long copy must show as well as tell: a product cutaway, a before/after, a map in the story.

Why it works

The layout is a borrowed-authority device: by taking a full page and typesetting it in the host paper's own editorial dress, headline face, columns and masthead, the appeal reads as reportage and inherits the credibility of the surrounding news. Proof is delivered by mass signature rather than by argument, and the two signature blocks do different jobs, northern celebrities supplying respectability and southern ministers supplying first-hand standing. The copy escalates from third-person reporting to a direct charge at the reader, refusing applause as a sufficient response, and lands on a coupon so the aroused feeling has somewhere to go in the same minute.

The big idea

Southern students' peaceful protests and Dr. King are under attack, and readers who applaud from a distance must now add their own voices and money.

The offer

Mail the coupon with a contribution to the Committee To Defend Martin Luther King and The Struggle For Freedom In The South, 312 West 125th Street, New York, or ask for more information.

The proof

A quoted New York Times editorial of March 19, 1960, dated accounts of police action in Orangeburg, Montgomery and other cities, and signatures of many named public figures and southern ministers.

Lines from the ad

Heed Their Rising Voices

Your Help Is Urgently Needed . . . NOW!!

We must heed their rising voices-yes-but we must add our own.

Steal this when

Use this when your cause or claim is already believed but not acted on, and the missing ingredient is legitimacy plus an immediate outlet. Set it as editorial, prove it with names rather than adjectives, then close the gap between conviction and action with a response device on the same page.

The emotion

Written to Duty. It makes the Say move.

It asks readers who applaud from afar to 'add our own' voices beside students already protesting, and the coupon names one act: a contribution mailed to the Committee at 312 West 125th Street.