A Letter from Cosmopolitan

Hi all,

One very fine morning a few weeks back, I sat down at my desk with a coffee in toll. While conducting my daily routine of clearing the morning emails, an email from one of my managers jolted me awake. Titled "Woah", the email contained nothing but the following link:

http://cosmopolitan.sg/2012/08/07/open-letter-5-things-we-really-want-prs-to-know/

Have you read it? I did. What did you think? I thought, "Woah", indeed. Cosmopolitan Singapore, the magazine for ‘fun and fearless women’ as their tagline suggests, takes fearless to a whole new level with this story.

The article kept me occupied for a good 30 minutes as I scrutinized every word, studied every tone and analysed every sentence of the article as well as the comments.

If you're not an avid reader, the article titled OPEN LETTER: 5 THINGS WE REALLY WANT PRS TO KNOW tells of well, an open letter from the people of Cosmopolitan Singapore to the PR practitioners in Singapore. In a nutshell, it lists 5 things that Cosmopolitan wants PR people to know and the message they wish to bring across:

1. Don’t ever ask, “Is this a good time to call?”

- There is never a good time to call, so do not ask.

2. Media tracking is your job

- They have better things to do than be a PR practitioners’ intern.

3. We are not our colleagues’ secretary

- Everyone is responsible for their own schedule

4. Friday evening is a bad time for events

- We’ve already worked hard all week, what were you thinking?

5. Find out if a journalist prefers to be contacted on the phone or via email

-  Keep a spreadsheet that details every single journalist’s personal preference.

Needless to say, the article sparked off a heated debated amongst the writers and PR practitioners. Having interned for over two months, some of the arguments raised were especially close to the heart.

In school, we learnt about how important media people are key to reaching our PR targets and KPIs as they determine whether there will be coverage or not. To do so, we will need to impress the media with good press releases, build relationships, etc. Yet, in the real world, PR practitioners have a job to do too which involves calling journalists, sending them multiple press releases on behalf of one too many clients as well as following up with them. The above mentioned problems arise when the journalists are unreachable or refused to be reached.

An extremely valid point brought across by a PR practitioner was that ‘it takes two to clap’. Just like how Cosmopolitan wants PR practitioners to understand their grievances, the same applies when roles are reversed too. No PR practitioner enjoys having to entertain the media over the weekends or work overtime just to accede to a last minute request by writers.

I believe that the saying – ‘Do unto others as you want others to do unto you’ would be appropriate in this instance. Journalists and PR practitioners should recognize that working alongside each other (and having a little more bearing towards each other) would be more beneficial than taking sides.

Till the next,

Grace Ong

15230928

Curtin Singapore