Hey Everyone. I hope you are all enjoying your placements and for those of you who have finished well done!
I thought I would take this opportunity to discuss one of the troubles I have come across during my public relations placement. As I mentioned in my last blog, I am going my placement at Kanyana Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, a not-for-profit organisation, who deal with the rehabilitation of sick, injured and orphaned wildlife.
I am a humanities student majoring in journalism. I have found this situation to have both a positive and negative effect on media relations and writing for public relations. My journalism units have shown me what makes good news, a good quote sounds like, and how to put together an interesting and newsworthy story. I now feel I have a fairly good idea about what information a journalist needs to produce an interesting and newsworthy story and this has helped me, from a public relations perspective, when writing a media release. I should be able to produce a media release which can be published as is.
However during my placement I have found this to not always be a good thing. After writing my first media release for Kanyana, I found I was including to many quotes and too many hard news facts. With guidance from my supervisor I was able to write something a little more suited to the situation. While juggling the two writing styles is something I will eventually get the hang of, for know I will have to set aside my hard news writing skills and write like a public relations professional. I also understand that each public relations department have a certain way of writing their release and while this is the way Kanyana prefers another organisation may require something a little more hard hitting.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this or if anyone has experienced the same thing as I know there are a few journalism students studying public relations also.
Thanks
Ria
2 comments:
I know what you mean. I'm also doing PR and Journalism so sometimes one type of writing influences the other. I guess it is just one of those things that takes time and experience.
On the other hand it can be useful having an understanding a background in journalism. You know exactly how they write and what they are looking for which can give you an advantage over someone who hasn't as much understanding of journalism.
I was surprised when I did my work placement at how different each organisation actually is. We're told they all have their own unique style but its not until you acutally work for an organisation that you know.
For example I was writing media releases the way we are taught ot at Uni and the PR manager where I did my placement had to advise me on how to make my media releases more suited to the organisation. I also found that considering the target audience is also quite improtant.
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