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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 7 (October 1, 1937.)

Public Interest

Public Interest.

There have been many definitions of what constitutes news, and most publications aim to train their staffs to know by a special sense just what will be most likely to interest their readers.

The make-up of the human animal is perhaps the best starting point in attempting to understand the origins of news. If you have ever fed a lonely seagull on a sea beach you will understand the beginnings of news in the animal world. The seagull at the sight of food cannot restrain an excited cawing that every winged thing within hearing understands—and repeats, so that in a few moments the news has carried for miles, and hundreds of birds are on the spot seeking to share the feast. Equally quickly the news of free entertainment for children, or free beer for men, will fly through a city.

News is the unusual or desired. So when the primary needs of food and shelter are provided, when repletion and rest have satisfied the more primitive senses, temperamental cravings commence to take the field, demanding news that will interest, amuse, excite or inspire.

The appeal of the heroic story is one that never grows stale. It has a double point of attack in that heroism is based first on health and then on unusual circumstances. When something out of the ordinary occurs, that is news. And when it is associated with an individual, so that it becomes a human story it has the elements of the most attractive kind of news. When it refers to an individual achievement in some worthy line of endeavour it approaches the ideal in human interest value.

A pre-eminent pianist, dancer, juggler, singer, speaker, or runner, is always news. So are the Dionne quintuplets, the champion bricklayer, and the lady who wins the beauty contest. “The Man They Couldn&t Hang” was a box-office record-breaker, and whoever happens to be the world's best boxer, golfer, tennis-player, or billiardist is always news until he is eclipsed.

The desire to excel in any particular direction is essentially a biological development. The practice, patience and application necessary to excellence in those things that create the greatest public interest are usually associated with some personal aptitude or original advantage, as the sense of colour and form in a painter, the perfect heart of a Lovelock, and the strength, weight, speed, courage and “football brains” of an All Black or Springbok.

Public interest is therefore a power for progress, as it has its basis in the natural desire to excel and in the natural admiration for excellence.

The multiplicity of publications in New Zealand covering, as they do, not only matters of general public interest, but also news about specialised activities in almost every line of endeavour, is one of the surest signs of national progress, and the avidity with which information released over the air is listened to is a further proof of the desire for the development of that knowledge from which all advancement springs.

Public interest is a force that makes for the betterment of the human race, as it feeds the instinct for improvement latent in nature; and whatever can be done to attract and hold friendly public interest is on the route of ultimate human progress.