Busy one week, dead the next.
When I first arrived at the Department of Sport and Recreation, communications were swamped with media monitoring and getting out the priority news releases. At this time I had quite a bit of work to do. After two weeks, the work has dies down and my duties have died down with it.
Recently I have learnt how to upload news items on the website which is great. Once I was shown twice, the process was super easy I didn’t need any assistance after what so ever. My supervisor was impressed at how quick my uploading skills are. But it really is a sintch!
Other duties have been writing the odd media release for sporting club events, following up on loose ends of a story and making further phone calls and emails. Today I re worked a very wordy media release about the Edmund Rice Centre Lions football match held for Harmony Day. The news item had some great quotes and information and I found it quiet easy to pick out the irrelevant information and re typed it so the article flowed and caught the reader’s attention.
From working here I have found my writing skills have improved immensely and I am able to reconstruct a media release with more confidence. For one, it doesn’t take me as long to re work and I am able to see more easily where paragraphs are most likely to fit in place.
I have learnt how to send out mass emails to regional admin’s in the WA area. This has enabled me to send out emails to monitor what news items I have written that have been published in the regional news papers. So far I have had one media release that has been published about a Country Athlete Scholarship. It’s on page 62 of the Mandurah Coastal Times. The other news item I released was for the NAIDOC Carnival. Unfortunately the photo attached to the article was of one girl who did not have permission to be photographed; therefore the story was not published.
Aside from this, I am pleased that my media release was even considered and published by a newspaper. I am truly starting to understand the ins and outs of researching, writing, sending and publishing a story. It’s quiet fulfilling to see your work out in the real world.
Emma Harris
Department of Sport and Recreaation
