This would mark the last blog post of my internship experience. As all of us are making the final mark and polishing our final report, I'd like to touch on the interpersonal part of public relations - communications. Being in the public relations trade would demand excellent written and verbal communication skills. And it is through communications skills that we build our interpersonal relationships with others.
Having said that, during the course of my placement, I was expected to forge good relationships with journalists. It is quite a challenging tasks as relationships cannot be forged over a day or two, but rather, through a long period of time. Creating a relationship is important and so is maintaining it. I would say that maintaining a relationship takes more effort than creating one. It is also a mental test of sincerity and trust.
Maintaining a good relationship can do much more wonders than one can ever imagine. Especially since public relations practitioners mostly deal with the media and instances where if a crisis was to happen, having good relationships and interpersonal communication skills are both essentially important to get the correct message across. Communication is also vital when something needs to be talked about to a firm's key publics, stakeholders and consumers. This is where communication comes into play.
Something to read up on: http://www.kwintessential.
2 comments:
hello wei ni!
I'm really glad that you have made it through your internship, taking away from it as much as i did with mine too!
I went through a similar situation with you - dealing with journalists. it is true that 'relationships' with them are not relatively easy to build. For me, the journalist that I was communicating with for a certain event was really really nice and friendly and it was rather effortless to 'build this friendship'.
However, I kept reminding myself that we have to be professional and not disclose more than we can since confidentiality and privacy is a must in the field of public relations. Not forgetting, only disclosure of facts since pr ethics should always be placed as first priority!
All the best babe!
I agree that building a relationship is not easy and will take some time. I once had a hard time trying to deal with a journalist who was out to be nitty-gritty. Because I was only an intern, it's hard to know how much I can reveal. Luckily my director came along and took over from me, and divulged that the journalist was "just like that".
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