PUBLICATIONS, BROADCASTING AND FILMS
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Division, and simplified plans and sketch maps suitable for press reproduction accompany news releases wherever necessary. Public relations officers of the Armed Forces and the British Council Representative make wide use of the Division's channels of dis- tribution.
The Publicity Division handles the local publicity campaigns of many other Government departments and the production of posters, leaflets and other visual aids to better public understanding continued throughout the year. A number of travelling photo- graphic exhibitions were also organized and dispatched to various parts of the world.
The Division's library of photographs has now been completely re-organized. Several thousand pictures-including colour trans- parencies—are on file and extra copies of the more important ones are always kept in hand. This means that a picture, together with a caption of about 150 words, can usually be made available within a few minutes of a request being received.
Distribution of magazine and newspaper feature articles overseas began during the year for the first time on a regular basis. These articles vary in length from 500 to 3,000 words and are usually accompanied by at least a dozen 10 × 8 inch glossy photographs. Colour transparencies are also included whenever possible. The articles explain Hong Kong's problems and achievements in terms of everyday life in the Colony, touching upon facets not normally encountered in other forms of Government publicity. They are distributed by British government agencies and commercial agents in all major countries and, because they must compete for space in the highly competitive, and lucrative, magazine and newspaper feature fields, the emphasis at all times is on quality rather than quantity. The number of articles published overseas is now in- creasing very rapidly and, through syndication, many appear a dozen or more times in a single country.
The distribution of sets of photographs for overseas use was also begun on a regular basis during the year. Each set deals with a different subject and normally contains between one and two dozen 10 × 8 inch glossy prints. Each picture has a com- prehensive caption of between 100 and 200 words, enabling them to be used either singly or combined as a 'spread'. These picture sets are proving very popular with overseas publications, both