What is public relations? From what I read from the results shown in Google, public relations is the professional maintenance of a favourable public image by a company, other organization or an individual in the eyes of the public. And to sustain a positive image of the company is to uphold a constructive relationship with one of its key target audiences, which is the media.
And so, here comes what has happened in the past two days. It was Curtin Sarawak’s Awards & Scholarship Ceremony on Friday (25th April) and Graduation Ceremony on Saturday (26th April) so I was asked to deal with the press together with one of my colleague, Lillian. As a PR practitioner, being in contact with the media is one of the most important part of the job. Without the media, what are we PR practitioners to do? So, my task for the night was to lead the press to their table and pass them each a hand out of the speeches and fact sheets. Before the event, my supervisor had me go all the way to the HR department to photocopy a few copies of these hand outs and all I thought was “Why do I have to do such trifling tasks?” Where is the public relations stuff that I am supposed to be doing?”.
But as I was standing there, I realize that this was more than just a petty chore. While waiting for the hand outs to be done copying, I got to read through them and understand how a fact sheet is prepared in the correct way as well as how speeches are drafted for the speakers. In fact, what I am doing is actually preparing a media kit for the press! And how could I have not realized that right from the beginning? Guess I was a little too nervous about doing this as this was my first time being present at an event not as a guest, but as a committee member.
Apart from that, I have also learnt an important lesson which is to present ourselves in the best image of our company as this will instill positive awareness among the public towards the organization. Because the way I present myself in front of the press indirectly shows how the company represents itself. Also, preparing fact sheets and writing speeches for people are certainly not some simple tasks. Imagine getting the facts on the fact sheet wrong and drafting a speech with lots of grammatical error. Mistakes like these cannot happen as everything done has to be pretty precise. Public relations do not recognize such minor liability and blunders as they may end up becoming huge faults.
Until my next post,
Vivian Lee
15442668
Curtin Miri
And so, here comes what has happened in the past two days. It was Curtin Sarawak’s Awards & Scholarship Ceremony on Friday (25th April) and Graduation Ceremony on Saturday (26th April) so I was asked to deal with the press together with one of my colleague, Lillian. As a PR practitioner, being in contact with the media is one of the most important part of the job. Without the media, what are we PR practitioners to do? So, my task for the night was to lead the press to their table and pass them each a hand out of the speeches and fact sheets. Before the event, my supervisor had me go all the way to the HR department to photocopy a few copies of these hand outs and all I thought was “Why do I have to do such trifling tasks?” Where is the public relations stuff that I am supposed to be doing?”.
But as I was standing there, I realize that this was more than just a petty chore. While waiting for the hand outs to be done copying, I got to read through them and understand how a fact sheet is prepared in the correct way as well as how speeches are drafted for the speakers. In fact, what I am doing is actually preparing a media kit for the press! And how could I have not realized that right from the beginning? Guess I was a little too nervous about doing this as this was my first time being present at an event not as a guest, but as a committee member.
Apart from that, I have also learnt an important lesson which is to present ourselves in the best image of our company as this will instill positive awareness among the public towards the organization. Because the way I present myself in front of the press indirectly shows how the company represents itself. Also, preparing fact sheets and writing speeches for people are certainly not some simple tasks. Imagine getting the facts on the fact sheet wrong and drafting a speech with lots of grammatical error. Mistakes like these cannot happen as everything done has to be pretty precise. Public relations do not recognize such minor liability and blunders as they may end up becoming huge faults.
Until my next post,
Vivian Lee
15442668
Curtin Miri
