Basic HTML Version
ature printed by the Worldwide
Church of God.
T he subscription list and litera–
ture requests are handled by the
more than 600 full- and part-time
employees of the Mail Processing
Center and Postal Services.
But this is a global work and
would not be possible without the
more than 150 men and women
who work in various offices scat–
tered around the world. T hese are
the people who have helped make
the various international editions of
The Plain Truth
a reality.
Now in Seven Languages
Let's start with Eu rope. Far from
being confined to Central Europe's
more than l00 mi Ilion German–
speaking peoples, the German
Plain Truth-K/ar
&
Wahr–
finds its way into more than 100
countries and associated states.
Klar
&
Wahr
is the second oldest
language ed ition of
The Plain
Truth
family, and its 90,000 circu–
lation plays an important part in
reaching the economic hear tland of
Europe.
The 250,000 circulation French–
language edition has enabled
The
Plain Truth
to get into the hands
of Frenchmen in thei r homeland,
as well as in such linguistically di–
verse areas as Belgium, Canada,
French Africa and Switzerland. In
fact,
La Pure Vérité
is distributed
in nearly 150 countries and associ–
ated states.
La Pure Verdad-the
Spanish–
language
Plain Truth-opened
a
door to the fourth largest language
group in the world . Many, sorne–
times trying, obstacles have had to
be overcome, especially the numer–
ous differing postal systems. The
Spanish-language
Plain Truth
has
steadily grown in scope ( it is now
the third largest language edition,
with a circulation of 188,000). It
serves the vast Spanish-speaking
area, including the country that has
the fifth largest Spanish-speaking
population in the world: the United
S tates.
T hough there are only 20 million
Dutch-speaking peoples,
De Echte
Waarheid
has enabled the message
of
The P/ain Truth
to reach people
in more than 60 different nations
and associated states. Our Dutch
office has experienced a consider-
February 1986
able increase in the Dutch sub–
scr iption list , now at 52,000.
Introduced in July of 1982,
La
Pura Verita-the
Italian branch of
the
Plain Truth
family- has been
an amazing success story. The re–
sponse has been excellent, with cir–
culation above 80,000 in 92 coun–
tries. The three countr ies having
the largest circulations are Italy,
Switzerland and Argentina.
The newest language added to
the
P lain Truth
family is Norwe–
gian,
Den Enkle Sannhet,
begin–
ning 1984. Its 25,000 copies circu–
late th roughout Scandinavia.
The oldest and by far largest
language edition is the E nglish-lan–
guage
Plain Truth.
lt is an enor–
mous task to reach the second
largest language group in the
In its 53rd year,
The
Plain Truth
continues not
only to inform its
readership of what is
happening, but why events
are happening.
world. Today, the
Plain Truth
En–
glish edition goes into just over 200
nat ions and associated states
around the world. Significantly, all
the various language editions are
printed in English-speaking na–
tions. The bulk of the English-lan–
guage
Plain Truths
are printed at
the huge R.R. Donnelley & Sons,
Co., press in Glasgow, Kentucky,
one of the largest printing estab–
lishments in the world.
Newsstand Circulation
Another significant achievement
for
The Plain Truth
has been the
success of the newsstand distribu–
tion program originally pioneered
in the United Kingdom in July
1971. Similar programs quickly
followed in France, the Nether–
lands and West Germany in 1972.
In January 1976, the Spanish-lan–
guage
P lain Truth
also began a
newsstand d istribu tion program. A
little more than seven months later,
in July 1976, newsstand distribu-
tion was begun in the United
States and Canada.
Today, newsstand distribution
accounts for more tban 30 percent
of the new subscribers each year
and a similar percent of the total
circulation of
The Plain Truth.
The Latest T echnology
The newest innovation to come to
The Plain Truth
is the acquisition
of a state-of-the-art real time com–
position computer system. In much
the same way as an aircraft flight
simulator's comptiter responds im–
mediately to an operator 's manipu–
lation of tbe controls, this new sys–
tem enables the staff at Publishing
Services to make any changes in
text composition almost instantly.
In addition, this system's mes–
saging feature will allow writers in
Pasadena, California, to send com–
pleted texts of their articles to the
various overseas offices' new termi–
nals overnight for translation to be–
gin the next day. When the transla–
tion is completed, the translated
texts will be transmitted back to
Pasadena in the same manner as
originally sent.
lf
everything goes
according to plan, all seven lan–
guage editions of
The Plain Truth
will be able, ultimately, to produce
the magazine for same-time distri–
bution.
Much has changed in the past 52
years of
The Plain Truth.
From
those very early lean years in the
'30s this work has grown in much
the same way as the "mustard
seed" Christ mentioned in
Matthew 13:31-32. Today,
The
Plain Truth
is a modern, mass cir–
culation magazine with a world–
wide audience.
Yet , the original basic guidelines
for
The Plain Truth
remain the
same. In fact, it is this perspective
that makes
The Plain Truth
unique. It can be summed up in the
words that are etched in the wall
over tbe southwest entrance of
Ambassador Hall on the campus of
Ambassador College in Pasadena:
"The Word of God ls the Founda–
tion of Knowledge. "
These words guide all writers
and editors of this magazine today
even as they have Mr. Armstrong
these 52 years. And they will con–
tinue to guide the entire organiza–
tion as it enters its 53rd year. o
11