Hi Again! My prac at the City of Joondalup is really progressing and I’m getting stuck into some serious projects. This month I have been responsible for writing the Monthly Clubs Update which is an electronic newsletter distributed to all sport and recreation clubs in the City.
I have sourced articles from other industry publications, written articles about upcoming events, provided news from the City and contacted clubs asking for story submissions that I then wrote up. I also had to follow-up with clubs to obtain high quality photographs to accompany the stories.
An interesting lesson I was confronted with while undertaking this task was the suitability of content for the audience. As I read through submissions from clubs and found stories I thought I could use, I would re-write them suit the language of the publication. As I did so, I took a very journalistic approach and cut any material I thought was irrelevant to the central point and angle of the story. It was only as I was discussing the aims and objectives of the newsletter with a colleague to determine/brainstorm some additional articles that I was reminded the newsletter had a very community focus. I had removed information about team mates and competitors that I felt was superfluous to a story about the individual success of a player at a national sporting competition. I decided to insert the removed content to retain the community angle while maintaining the professional style and language of the newsletter.
To my surprise, when the newsletter copy was returned from the Marketing/Communications department after approval, much of the community focus I reinserted had been removed again for format and layout considerations. Marketing elected to include numerous glossy images of sporting fields and equipment rather than the content relating to the clubs and the emphasis on the social angle. This misunderstanding of the aim and focus of the newsletter has become a concern that will now be raised at the monthly marketing meeting so that the focus and need for inclusion of the community angle are identified as important.
When considering different angles and communicating with stakeholders, I decided to look back at some theory from our PR units and will keep the following ideas in mind when writing the October Monthly Update. Stanton (2000) states the purpose of a newsletter is to disseminate information to stakeholders in a controlled fashion. For this reason, the information can be written in a different way to that pitched to the news media and the content and design must be easily accessible to the intended audience. It must have a strong emotional appeal as well as providing rational content.
No comments:
Post a Comment