Printers' Ink, July 15, 1888 (Vol. 1, No. 1)
The first issue of Printers' Ink, a 32-page semi-monthly "class journal" for advertisers, publishers and printers, at one dollar a year from 10 Spruce Street, New York, the office of George P. Rowell's agency.
What it is
The first issue of Printers' Ink, a 32-page semi-monthly "class journal" for advertisers, publishers and printers, at one dollar a year from 10 Spruce Street, New York, the office of George P. Rowell's agency. It opens with Current Topics, short editorials on Matthew Arnold's attack on the American press, trusts, the tariff and journalism teaching at Cornell. City correspondence, patent notes, the Hollistype photographic book process and trade items follow. The editorial core is advertising history: the earliest newspaper advertisement (a sermon notice in Mercurius Elencticus, 1648), the first commercial one (tea, in Mercurius Politicus, 1658), and London after the 1666 fire set against Chicago after 1871. "A Bottom Hint to Advertisers" holds that every advertisement must announce a fact. Other pieces cover Edison's phonograph, the craft of interviewing and painter Frank Millet's attention stunt. It closes with Rowell's advertisement for his book Newspaper Advertising.
Why read it now
Read it to see what the advertising trade chose to say about itself on day one. Two ideas still hold. The "Bottom Hint" treats the advertiser like a lawyer: show the goods in the strongest light the evidence allows, never claim a property they lack. Consumer-protection rules in the Gulf and most other markets now enforce exactly that line. The Millet story, a painting so loud the critics had to print his name, is an early case of the point memory research still makes: being noticed and named comes before being liked, though hostile notice is not a plan. What has dated: most pages are general news, tariff politics and jokes rather than advertising craft, and the journal doubled as a house organ for Rowell's agency, so its praise of his newspaper directory is self-interest. Use: if you launch a newsletter or trade publication, copy its opening page. It says whom the journal serves, what every issue will carry, and asks readers for criticism with particulars, not compliments.
Passages worth keeping
It is no greater mistake for him that has something good and genuine to sell, to leave the public to find it out for themselves than to attract people by a "taking" advertisement that lacks the element of truth.
من يملك بضاعة جيدة ثم يسكت عنها منتظرًا أن يكتشفها الناس وحدهم يخطئ، تمامًا كما يخطئ من يجذبهم بإعلان لافت لا صدق فيه.
he should commend his wares or services to the public in the strongest and most skillfully arranged light they will bear; but the things commended should be the things he has at disposal
للمعلن أن يعرض بضاعته في أحسن صورة ممكنة، بشرط أن يكون ما يمدحه موجودًا عنده فعلًا بالصفات التي يذكرها.
So far as they fit the public need, as the public feels its need, they succeed; so far as they do not fit that need as it is felt, they fail, and all their good intentions with them.
الصحف تنجح بقدر ما تلبي حاجة الناس كما يشعرون بها هم، لا كما يراها أصحابها، وإذا لم تلبها سقطت ومعها نواياها الحسنة.
If one should tell us that it is absolutely weak and disappointing, we should be grateful, provided that he would condescend to particulars, so that we might weigh the criticism and have our profit of it.
المجلة ترحب بمن يقول إن عددها الأول ضعيف، بشرط أن يذكر التفاصيل، لأن النقد المحدد وحده يمكن وزنه والانتفاع به.
And a majority of them never saw that Frank had simply compelled their attention by a clever trick.
معظم النقاد لم يدركوا أن الرسام فرض انتباههم بحيلة ذكية، فصاروا يكتبون اسمه وهم يظنون أنهم يهاجمونه.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
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