She was requesting if our chef to contribute a recipe with stone fruits and do a short email interview. How interesting can that be? I need to interview chef, write a biography of him, organise a photo taking session of the dish and chef.
Anyway, I got myself on the task. I contacted the Executive Chef who chose to have his newly promoted Junior Sous Chef featured in the article instead. So I had met up with them to discuss the requirement of this feature article and the dish chosen. We were having trouble choosing the dish because the editor rejected the proposed dish due to the lack of summer stone fruits. Therefore, Chef had to modify the dish to suit the theme and of course, this is not a problem for our Executive Chef.
The editor had given me some questions which I had to ask the Chef. After which I had to crack my brain to put those answers together in a media prospective. It is not as easy as what I did in school. One lesson my supervisor advised and I learned is that in a feature article, we have to be very creative in writing descriptions and the use of adjectives have to be rather strong. I tried and with my supervisor's review, I managed to have it done.
After answering questions, time to get some background information about the Junior Sous Chef. Since he was newly promoted, it will be great for me to do a biography for him so as it may be use for future. Again, asking for information is never a problem but to phase all these information into a 100 words bio is really tough. I was asking my supervisor this question, "100 words, how can I write so much to cover the bio of someone?" She advised that the bio acts as a summary of a person hence it should covers the most important information of a person.
The editor and her photographer arrived and luckily, my supervisor asked me to check on the white table cloth as requested by the editor checked prior to their arrival. Somehow the restaurant did not have them prepared in advance till I asked.
Anyway, it's time to play host for the editor and the photographer. I was appointed fully to take care of this assignment and glad everything when smoothly.
*lesson learnt: coordination with relevant section is important although it was just a simple photo-taking session with the editor. The overall preparation portray the professional level of a PR personnel. I am glad my first hosting of a media went smoothly.
4 comments:
I never thought anyone would do a real life interview other than the practice round that we had for PR Media. Im sure you put the tips and stuff that we learnt for media to good use? Its a good experience for any intern to have! It would definitely improve your confidence if you have to do another interview, maybe with a celebrity? Im sure you have learnt a lot on that day as you were able to see the process unfold, especially when your manager put you in charge of the entire project. It trains you to be more responsible as well.
Hey Erica,
Thanks for the encouragement. Neither did I expect too. I was really worried when I was ask to interview my chef, I had to recall as to how I did in class. Luckily I had good terms with the chef hence the tension was not so intense.
Anyway, it really does improve my confidence and hopefully I will get more of such opportunity.
Cheers~
Comment by Valerie Lange,14462173 (Singapore)
Hi Givany, I am so thrilled for you that you got to be involved in such an exciting task. I know your pain about writing some Bio’s in the way that publication wants to read it. Sometimes we have to think out of the box or place ourselves in someone else’s shoes to write a good one.
Like you, I was involved in a live product demonstration shoot wit Tim Goh from Channel News Asia. Sometimes, the media can really spring up unexpected things on us like coming without preparing anything and everything is done last minute. For example, in this situation, Tim Goh was supposed to cook chicken wings, but after cooking chicken wings he wanted to cook an egg. I had to run all over the place to find an egg and everyone was quite nervous, as the outcome was unpredictable.
This is the life of a PR Practitioner, we try to prepare as best as we can, but changes are bound to take place at the last minute and we have to display flexibility, quick thinking and be adaptable to change. Thus being well prepared is not always enough, having back up resources to support you is also essential.
Hi Givany,
Good job on the interview! It was interesting to read on how an interview is actually conducted in real life. I still remember we had a mock interview session as an assignment for our PR media module in school!
One more good experience for you and more to come. By then you'll be more confident when conducting interviews (:
Cheers!
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