Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines

Hello everyone,

It has been a while since my last blog so I thought I would give you a quick update on my internship at Scitech…

I have now been at Scitech for close to six months and during that time my level of involvement in PR tasks has certainly increased from the basic media book updating and media monitoring to overlooking projects and generating publicity for whole departments.

Recently my supervisor went on a two-week holiday and during her absence I was approached by the Scitech CEO with the task of gaining publicity (specifically an interview with ABC radio) for a project run by Scitech in collaboration with Rio Tinto. This was definitely a task that my supervisor would normally handle so at first I was a little overwhelmed but then realised it was a great opportunity to have a first hand insight into what my supervisor’s job entails.

The Scitech and Rio Tinto project called ‘Beijing Bound’ is a year long process, which involves regional high school students partnering up with Rio Tinto research supervisors, to create their own science research project. The projects are judged and the students who claim the top two spots are flown to Beijing with their Rio Tinto supervisor, to take part in the international Beijing Youth Science Creation Competition.

So after doing a bit of research on the project and talking to various Scitech staff involved, I wrote up a media release and sent it to the media contacts at ABC North West, as both the students chosen for the Beijing trip were from the Karratha region. The next morning at 9am I received a call from the morning show producer at ABC North West, wanting to do an interview with both the students in half an hour.

A bit frazzled from only just waking up (as it was my day off from Scitech), I realised that it was still a school day and both the students would be in class so getting them ready for an on-air interview in less than half an hour would be problematic…

After a stressful few minutes of trying to convince the school receptionist that this was important enough to pull the students out of class, and that I needed the science teacher to call me asap, the receptionist finally promised that she would pass the message on. Getting close to the deadline given to me by the ABC producer, I finally got in contact with the science teacher, explained what the interview would be about and organised for the students to be let out of class.

The interview lasted about seven minutes and despite the frantic organising beforehand, it went off without a hitch. Initially I wasn’t too sure how happy the ABC producer was with me about the interview being set up very close to the deadline but in the following two weeks she conducted another two interviews with the students (and Scitech staff who accompanied them to Beijing) so I realised that close deadlines are just part of a producer’s job and nothing more.

There were a few instances similar to this whilst my supervisor was away which confirmed two important things about media relations and how they will affect me if I choose this as my career:

• Even though media relations is all about deadlines it doesn’t necessarily mean stress – I just have to be more organised!

Gaining publicity for regional activities (tours, school visits, etc) is my number one priority and these are all activities which I can easily be made aware of prior to the event and therefore get well underway on before the deadline.

However, when it comes to impromptu tasks (like the media requesting an interview, information or pictures) I need to prepare for anything that may be thrown at me. For the above case, I could have talked to the school and science teacher before contacting ABC North West to get a direct contact number and to make them aware that an interview may be conducted with the students at any time.

In terms of other tasks, I am now taking home any relevant information with me on a USB stick, so if I am contacted by media whilst out of the office, I can still send them any info or pictures that they require.

• The first point of contact needs to be available 24/7

My mobile is definitely not ‘attached to my hip’ - I don’t take it everywhere and if I do, it is usually on silent and in my bag. Since putting myself (instead of my supervisor) as first point of contact on all of my media releases, I have been more aware of having my phone on me at all times and have had to let go of the ‘if you don’t know the number, don’t pick up’ way of thinking.

So despite having occasionally felt like I was being ‘thrown in the deep end’, achieving the assigned tasks has been extremely rewarding. Although there have been a few mishaps along the way, these all add to the experience and are necessary for me to be aware of in order to improve and prepare for the next task.

I hope everyone’s finding their internship to be very rewarding too and that the looming final report deadline isn’t causing too much stress!

Charlotte

Bentley Campus