What ‘news’ fills your newsletter?

Is an employee publication filled with carefree, happy trivia and harmless gossip the right one for your company?

Editor’s note: In March l964, Larry Ragan was the editor of ICIE Reporting, the monthly magazine of the International Council of Industrial Editors, the precursor of IABC. This essay about how the corporate “culture” should influence the tone of the employee publication is taken from Larry’s column in ICIE Reporting.

The role of controversy as it is carried in industrial publications is an interesting one. There is much to be said on both sides of the question, and it is not exactly an original statement to suggest that every person must decide what his attitude will be on the basis of his own individual experience and the problems he faces.

I have had a few experiences that I think of whenever I read positively militant statements about editors telling their company’s point of view. For example, I once edited a small internal publication for a manufacturer whose personnel man was one of the sharpest in the field I’ve ever met.