Telling the Road Transport Story
Page 22
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ROAD transport has a good story to tell, but it can hardly be claimed that its information service is as effective as those of numerous other movements, some of them much less meritorious. General propaganda upon the value, past, present and future, of the passenger-service vehicle and the goods vehicle, as distinct from commercial advertising of particular operators, is too thin and too widely spread. Meanwhile, one obvious avenue is completely neglected. In general, British newspapers are anxious to present to their readers a fair picture of every case that for any reason becomes news and, for this reason, more effort might well be made to provide a better supply of information to the lay Press. This is not a plea for still more hand-outs—quite the reverse. It is obvious, from the number of times transport journalists of standing are asked by representatives of daily and weekly newspapers for details of the most suitable sources of information on road transport, that the industry's publicity has not penetrated thoroughly enough to that most valuable of all contacts with the public at large, the ordinary reporter.
Informative announcements in those periodicals that address themselves to the newspaper fraternity help the reporter, and through him the industry concerned. This is a truth that has not escaped those who speak on behalf of the American trucking industry, but up to the moment it seems to have eluded their British counterparts.