I am a Curtin Bentley student and currently doing internship at the Western Australia Deaf Society (WADS). I’ve just started on the 22nd of September. It’s pretty late when most of you might have done or perhaps about to finish the internship.
I just want to share about what I learned in the first week of my internship. I am working for WADS, a non-for-profit organization providing services and support to Deaf and hard of hearing people.
In my first week I was asked to write a media releases and draft an annual report and a brochure. At first, I found hard to do it since it’s been a while since I have written a media release. I found myself being ineffective and spending too much time on drafting it. I had to read brochures and any other information given by my supervisor to understand the whole idea of the Society’s services.
I had read the previous annual report and checked the Society’s website before I commenced my internship. But it seems that I still lacked information when I was asked to draft the 2009 annual report.
Finally, on the third day of my internship I got back my release. A lot of changes have been made that made me a little bit disappointed. But I had thought of it before. It is a constant learning process, I suppose. Different writing style, deciding on which information should go into a release, and which should not… they are not an easy thing to do. I guess PR 200 alone is not enough =( I don’t know. What do you guys think?
Until my next post.
Signing off,
Annice
3 comments:
Hi Annice,
Thank you for your post. I am also doing my placement at a not-for-profit organisation and have experienced things similar to what you have. Although I am also a volunteer with my organisation and have a fair idea about the organisation, I too found I was doing a lot of research for media releases. I found going back over my notes and books from past semesters helped a lot as it refreshed my memory and gave me a bit of confidence.
You are right when you say it is a constant learning process. While most of us are new to the organisations we are working for, existing employees and volunteers already have an existing idea of what their organisation is about, what should go into their releases and how they should be written, and this will always be the case when starting at a new organisation. Each time it is a very daunting experience.
I look forward to seeing how you go.
Ria
Hi Annice,
It's Desiree. I know how you might be feeling about the media releases. Not knowing about the background of WADS does make it a bit tricky but most of the media releases are topical so you don't necessarily have to know about WADS as such. Looking at pamphlets, website and annual report is the best thing for you to do to get a better understanding.
In regard to getting the copy back with changes I know how you feel but you are right it is a learning process and at the end of the day you are writing for the organisation and what they want is usually the go.
You can explain why you wrote a certain way but the manager will have the final say.
Unless you like writing, media releases can be hard to produce or seem boring but just think about it as wanting to get the most experience out of your internship.
Good luck, with it all!
Desiree
Hi Desiree =)
Thank you for your comment.
Yes, you are right that I don't need all the information and that the media release is topical. Somehow I'm getting used to writing a media release even though I still need to improve a lot of things.
I was sitting the other day with the manager to get my media release corrected. And at the end of the day, I felt relieved knowing that I learned something from it.
Post a Comment