Hola! I'm proud to say that I interned for 9 and not 8 weeks. I was having such a good time that I decided to stay for an extra week. During my last week there, there were two pictorials that appeared in the papers as well as a news story which I will later attach once I get my hands on them. So what did I learn through out these 9 weeks? I learnt hat having a good relationship with the media is vital. Aren't they the ones who m we send out our press releases to? Also good timing of the press release is also important while the news is still newsworthy and not stale. Also, it was important that all press releases should be followed with a press call. We had to be thorough and persistent with our calls. Just because your story was not covered after the last call, or even the last ten calls, does not mean that it will not be covered this time. All this sometimes it depended on what else newsworthy is going on at the time, but good, persistent press work had a cumulative effect.
I am grateful for the opportunity to intern in the Public Relations field and appreciate the profession even though the image of the public relations industry is not a positive one. This is because of a variety of reasons including lack of standardization in the field, misrepresentation in the media and misuse of the term public relations, among other things. One of the main reasons for the negative perception of the public relations profession is that some people do not consider public relations to be a profession at all so they don't identify PR with promoting ethics and other issues reinforced by professional associations. Which brings me back to what I mentioned earlier about having a good relationship with the media. This is one method practitioners are using to try and change the image of the industry: by building relationships with the media. Forming working relationships with journalists allows the free flow of information. Reporters dislike public relations people because they do not think they are honest. By forming a trusting relationship with reporters, the practitioners are better able to communicate their client's message. All in all it was a great learning experience and who knows, maybe I'll ditch my passion for Radio and venture into Public relations..........(yeah right!!!!). We'll see where this interesting journey called life leads me to.
Love always
xoxo
Carol Songa
Limkokwing University Malaysia
3 comments:
Hi Carol,
It's interesting that this thought of PR being a BAD or not a profession if at all is not an Australian one. Here too, this is very present and it is weird even some of my Journalism lecturers say that PR is going to the dark side.
But, I would really like to know how journalists would work if there were no PR Officers, would they be able to talk to Premiers, Prime Ministers and so on? I believe it is a mutually beneficial relationship and journalists need PR Officers as well as PR Officers need journalists.
It is true that there are some pretty bad PR tactics out there, like with Ribena in Australia. Just to brief you, two girls did an experiment and wrote to Ribena saying that there was not 7 times more Vitamin C (than an orange) in it. Ribena did not believe the girls and neglected the story. The girls went to scientifics who found out that it was real, and instead of Ribena excusing themselves, the CEO was seen to put the blame on other people.
Yet on the other side, you have Mars and Snickers whereby the PR officer advised them to tell the public the truth. So what happened here was that, someone said they poisoned one Mars and Snickers bar, so instead of the PR Officer controlling the story and not letting it in the media, he or she did the complete contrary, meaning, called for a press conference and told the public about it.
Therefore, the PR officer is there to help the public. It's sad that PR is always seen as working for the devil, but I mean every profession has its good and bad people.
I believe that this unit will seriously make all of us think twice and eventually slowly make the PR world better because we have been taught of what is ethical PR and so on.
this is an interesting issue..it looks like journalists all over the world look at PR practitioners as dishonest people. But come on, we all know that the less trusted people in the world are journalists themselves.
i think its high time journalists stopped calling us all sort of names and just admit that as much as we need them for our exposure, they also need us for news. we create news for them.
and everybody knows that journalsists often will do anything to get a good story, even by using the unethical means, just like a Pr professional can do anything to make his client happy.
so this thing going on between this two proffesions should come to an end..
Thanks Carol
Your insights into the role of the media were interesting, and complimentary to what I have found myself. Working at a Street Press magazine, it has been interesting to see PR from the other side.
The urgency the media requires as well the whole cumulative effect and synergized plan is something I have defintly noticed myself.
Cheers
Post a Comment