Dealing with the Media!

I figured RPH would have to deal with media on a regular basis but I didn’t realise just how much!

Particularly after the weekend when many accidents occur and there are several trauma patients in the hospital, it’s a race between the media stations for who will cover the story. They all want to be the first to interview and video the patient. I sympathise for these individuals who have just suffered great injury and are going through a traumatic time yet there are several people from the media around who are only concerned with selling their story. I guess that’s the nature of the industry.

It was a hectic day in the PR office yesterday following the shark attack over the weekend. There were journalists from all the media stations in and out of the office wanting to know when they could speak with the patient. Several calls to the department with people after the condition report of the patient and it even gained international attention with NBC wanting to cover her story. By the middle of the day it had turned in to a bidding war between the stations. It was certainly an eventful day. I also learnt that a lot of the time with these types of cases they do a ‘pull’ situation where one station will get the story but they must share it with the other major stations.

In between the shark saga, I dealt with a couple of smaller media enquires where people had been flown in to the hospital from rural areas and so they wanted to cover their stories in their local papers.

Last week we did a photo shoot for the piece I wrote for OT week. One of the Graphic Designers from the hospital came with us to take a series of photos of the patient and his therapist. I got to see the prints yesterday. I think they turned out great and will complement the story.

I spent the rest of the day working on a piece I’m writing for RPH’s monthly newsletter ‘Servio’. My piece is about a new program that has been put in place at the Mental Health Services Department. It is proving to be successful so it’ll be a good story to share with staff and the community. We interviewed the Psychiatric Ward Operations Manager last week to get a better understanding of what the program is all about and so I’d have some notes for writing the story.

Compared to writing the media release for the local newspaper I’m finding this a bit more challenging to write up. A piece for an internal newsletter requires a different ‘voice’ to a media statement so it took me a bit longer to get stuck in to it but I managed to draft something up by the end of the day so I’m looking forward to getting some feedback on it.

Will let you know how I go :)

p.s. click on my title to have a look at RPH's 'Servio' newsletter