POPULARIZING KNOWLEDGE THROUGH THE "NEWS"
Popularizing Knowledge Through the "New" ANOTED WRITER, a man whose reports and interpretations of contemporary social conditions have won him a large following of eager readers, once...
...In keeping with its spirit of commonwealth service, the University of Wisconsin has established a Press Bureau...
...And for the same reason there are at least two ways of looking at education: the personal and the social...
...Holman...
...THE most effective agency for popularizing knowledge, helpful and otherwise, is of course the press...
...He remarks: "There are at least two ways of looking at news: the personal and the social...
...If Knowledge is Power, then knowledge must be sent out from the people's chief centers of learning in form fitted to popular grasp...
...Press bulletin to individuals and papers outside of the state, 266...
...The service provided by Editor Holman is "taking" with the newspapers of the state...
...Just big enough for us to glimpse the immense possibilities there may be in the new arm whereby a university may instruct millions every week instead of a few thousand...
...President Van Hise selected as head of this service Charles W. Hol-man...
...And the vital part the newspapers and magazines play in public self-help and public self-development, in these days of democratic strivings, is nowhere more strongly emphasized than in the recent conferences of editors and publishers to thresh over the functions and ideals of their business...
...stories of great and little movements to reconstruct and make better our common world...
...Then shall Science and Art be made a part of the working equipment of the people, and not remain for years buried in dusty libraries...
...2. To stimulate interest in the big social news, by handling it in the HUMAN way it should be handled...
...The one we see most frequently in our news columns...
...murders, divorce suits and the like...
...Holman grew, through his field work among the farmers, to weigh "news" according to the new standards of social interest and community value...
...Sometimes an idea is put out by means of a picture...
...An experienced newspaper man, a writer of short stories and social articles, Mr...
...but there must also be opportunities for community and group education, wherewith community and group problems may be tackled with team work and community betterment achieved through co-operation and common understanding...
...The other we should see more frequently...
...They frequently hit upon discoveries of great social interest and value...
...and to weekly papers in Wisconsin, 536...
...There are a multitude of ways...
...to morning papers and associations, 37...
...national sporting list, 45...
...These are but a suggestive scattering of the topics treated by the Press Bureau...
...Popularizing Knowledge Through the "New" ANOTED WRITER, a man whose reports and interpretations of contemporary social conditions have won him a large following of eager readers, once said: "Scientists and investigators in all fields are constantly pushing forward the boundaries of human knowledge...
...Telling how to swat the fly, or even how best to put away winter clothing...
...Recording an important discovery for example...
...AND here you have the aim and hope of the University of Wisconsin Press Bureau— 1. To take such of this information as may be capable of treatment, and interpret in popular language for the average reader...
...There should be a Spreader of Knowledge like this in every state university...
...Holman's work has met with favor among reporters and editors...
...There is furnished, according to nature and need, weekly special services—health service to daily and weekly papers in Wisconsin, 200...
...Wisconsin-Illinois list, 18...
...When Holman set to work a year ago there were about fifty papers in Wisconsin reached by material sent out througn regular University channels...
...We have made a small start," says Mr...
...But these experts in recording their findings use technical language, a. language unfamiliar to the layman...
...and national Sunday service, 84...
...Reporting in advance a convention that has a bearing upou the public welfare...
...Holman was associate editor of Farm and Ranch, the big agricultural journal in Texas...
...He had won recognition far beyond the boundaries of that state for his constructive efforts to solve the tenant problem, to abolish Landlordism— that present blight upon so many vast agricultural sections of the South—to put in operation marketing associations to free the farmer from the leeches that now suck his substance at the great terminals, and to set the people upon the road to self-betterment through rural social centers and other means...
...services to afternoon daily papers and associations, 99...
...Again material in the raw is furnished to "the other fellow" to write...
...3. To keep the people accurately and unbiasedly informed of the way their money is being spent and the tangible returns they are getting for the expenditure...
...Telling the simple story of a village's civic prograr Advising farmers what varieties of corn to plant, or how to organize a co-operative marketing association...
...within the state, 23...
...When he took hold busy editors woke up pleasantly to the fact that "live stories" were coming to their desks from the University—stories of an educational kind, to be sure, but nevertheless meeting the test of "news" and written with a truly "human interest" style...
...national engineering list, 21...
...Today, what...
...How is it done...
...One said: "His copy isn't dry and tedious as is much of the stuff that comes out of institutions of learning for newspaper use...
...It shows the marks of a live writer—newsy, brief, and having the indispensable punch...
...That is why universities have grown many arms which we today call Extension...
...Opportunities must be placed before the individual to educate himself, yes...
...It is the business of us writers to translate these matters into the language of the street corner and the home...
...With a people, just as with an individual, Knowledge is Power...
...For example, the fact that a certain kind of mosquito carries yellow fever...
...Of this number, approximately two-thirds use the material regularly...
Vol. 6 • June 1914 • No. 23
