My writing skills were put to the test this week when I was set the tasks of developing an article for the RAC's member magazine Horizons, writing a media release about car safety, and contributing to one of the regular clumns in Horizons.
The first article was about bushfire safety during summer, and basically provided tips for homeowners on how to protect their homes this summer. Even though it was a small article, it required a large amount of research - my main contact was the Fire and Emergency Services Authority (FESA) who was able to provide me with a number of tips and information, and the insurance department of the RAC who provided me with relevant statistics. In a way, it was a bit like writing something for uni - research, research, research, and then writing, editing, and submitting to my boss before the deadline! I continually needed to be succinct in my writing, as I had a large amount of information but only a couple of hundred words to put it into.
The media release was a bit trickier to write. The release was based on a car safety rating that gets updated every year, so they already had a release from last year that I had to use as a base. The actual compnay that conducted the car safety rating had already issued a media release to us this year as well, but their release was rather technical and boring. So the challenge here was to combine both releases and update the information, ensuring that it followed the same type of format as last years, but was not filled with technical jargon that every-day peole don't want to hear about! I didn't expect to get it right the first go, but after a couple of edits from my supervisor, I finally got the release to her satisfaction and ready to send out!. I saw this as a learning exercise, as constantly reviewing and editing my work forced me to think harder and improve my work.
I am glad that I have had the oppotunity to show my supervisor's my writing ability, and that they were willing to let me write a release and articles for publish! I leaned quite a bit about writing releases and articles this week - the importance of being succinct; sorting the most relevant pieces of information from the unimportant ones; adhering to deadlines; taking pride in my work; self-editing; and also the ability to write in diferent formats and structures.
That's it for now!
Amanda
5 comments:
Wow! I hope my supervisor gives me media release to write. Its quite hard for them I think, because the media release needs to get through to the state government for monitor and approval, government's policies sort to speak.
All the best for you...
All the best!
Regards, Agnes
Hello Amanda,
Nice to hear that your media release has been sent, though you had to edit and edit and make it perfect!
I had the opportunity as well to write a media release, well a draft i would say, about the launching of a new refinery in Mauritius.
And I had to refine the media release and i was assited by the project manager.
The only difficult, well i would say challenging step is that we are studying everything in English and now on my internship, i had to do every work in French and this was quite challenging for me, but a good experience for my future :D
To agnes- Hope you get to have an insight in all the PR work out there.. media releases, fact sheets, backgrounders, kits, contact with other clients etc,...
All these PR work will indeed help you in your career and you will see how things often differs from lectures or often are similar!
All the best
Sabrina
Hi Amanda,
I think it's great that you were given the responsibility of doing some writing during your PR placement! Finally you got to apply the skills we were taught in first year in the real world!
I personally haven't been given any media releases to write, but I can imagine I would be nervous - hoping to write the right thing, make no spelling mistakes etc. I had a read of your media releases and articles for the Horizons magazine and they were really professional, well done!
I know that as I continue my career and gain more experience in the industry, my writing ability will become better and better.
Best of luck,
Yvette
Hey guys, thanks for all the supportive comments!
It was so exciting to be trusted with writing a media release for them - even though my supervisor did the final edits, it was still my ideas and wording, so I was so proud!
Did any of you guys get to write any media releases o anything like that for your placement?
Sabrina - that must have been fun (haha) working in French, i know exactly how dificult that is - i work for a mining company and the official documents we recieve from our site are all in French... thank heavens for Google translate!!
Yvette - thanks, I was so excited when I got the Horizns magazine in the mail!! I was very nervous when they asked me to write these pieces - i didn't wan to write the wrong thing, or for them to tell me it's terrible! But now that I have, i have so much more confidence in my writing ability!
Cheers guys, hope your placements all went well!
Amanda
At my internship Diabetes WA I had to write quite a few media releases. Some came easily and I was able to get done without a worry, giving me a huge confidence boost in the skills we've learned at uni. Others not so... one particular release it had me stumped, it wasn't that the content or message was hard it was just hard and I didn't like my headline, or my lead. What i had to do was walk away, get a cup of tea and stop looking at it for a while. This really worked. Chatting with my supervisor she said she experiences something similar. Sometimes we just get a bit of "writers block" because we've been looking at it for too long. She said that sometimes she can spend a whole afternoon on one release changing and editing it constantly. This encouraged me lots because she comes from a journalism back ground and it made me feel like I wasn't the only one
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