Salutations to everyone,
My name is Fazar Ria Muneera and I’m in my final year of Mass Communications majoring in Public Relations stream in Curtin University, Miri. I’m currently doing my internship at Fleishman-Hillard, Kuala Lumpur (FHKL) since December 2012 and my I'm finishing very soon. I apologise for delaying my post.
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| PR Awards trophies won by Fleishman-Hillard Kuala Lumpur shown at the office entrance. |
Before I start, let me introduce about FH and its office in Kuala Lumpur. Fleishman-Hillard is a strategic communication firm that was first based in St. Louis then the company grows and now has 80 offices around the globe. FH has expanded its office in Kuala Lumpur on 1999. FH is no stranger in public relations industry and I feel honoured to be given an opportunity to join the company.
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| My e-mail details given buy FHKL office manager, Shirleen Ooi. |
On my first day, I was assigned to do a media monitoring for Volvo Trucks Malaysia. Its exactly like what we’ve done in PR 250 media clipping assignment. The difference is we don’t need to flip through the magazines and dailies that much as we have news and advertising monitoring agency to do it for us. However, we still need to do a cross check in case they left out with some of the news regarding with the company. I learnt something that never been taught in class, every releases has its own PR value which is thrice the advertising value (AD Value). The news that we need to monitor is not only on the company news but we need to monitor the competitor(s) as well as the industry itself. Every morning, I need to send a media monitoring report to respective account holders via e-mail together with the news clipping(s). I noticed that different client has their own preferences on news monitoring report format and we as the PR person of their company need to follow it. Thus, that's explained why PR assignments do not have specific format like other business units.
One of my challenge when doing a media monitoring is to summarise non-English dailies especially Chinese language dailies. Yes, I have to admit that although I speak Malay language at home with my family, I still have a bit of problem (ok, just a bit) translating Malay to English. Google translator is not being helpful but I’m glad I have another intern to help me out with Chinese translation. I guess it would be better for PR practitioner to know more than one language. It would be an advantage that can bring us further. My advice is, learn as much language as you can and embrace your own mother tongue. It's time to read and speak more.
Best of luck!
Regards,
Fazar Ria Muneera Bt. Safree Zainudin
7D5B3504/ 13761196
Semester 1, 2013
Curtin University, Miri Sarawak campus
7 comments:
Hey Fazar! :D
Sounds very similar to what I had to do as a Pr intern for JW! Media monitering with an already established database! We still have to check any print media that comes in though which can be extremely tedious... I also agree wholeheartedly about the language thing! In my office, it's very hard to get by if you don't know much Thai like me! haha!
Hey Christy!
Sometime the database is not accurate at all as they failed to provide the news that we wanted. Thus, we need to ignore the irrelevant news and cross check the company's media coverage in online media and print media like magazine.
Language barrier is a common thing in PR I guess. It's time for all of us to learn and practice. Never be ashamed for trying. That's one of the key to success.
Hi Fazar,
Ahh, language barrier! It does happen a lot in Asia countries, especially in Malaysia where we grew up speaking our own ethnic languages. Even during my internship, I need to translate advertising scripts into 3 different languages! (Chinese, Malay, English, sometimes even Cantonese) In my workplace, there are colleagues from different types of ethnic group too. You can imagine we have a very rich culture here :)
In my opinion, in PR industry, both communication and writing skills are vital and useful for us to master it. For me, I actually learnt a bit of French few years ago. Reading, listening to songs and watching movies help me to improve myself. I hope this helps!
Best wishes for your internship!
Renee xx
Hi Renee,
Yes, we have a rich culture in Malaysia and its an advantage for a firm to have a multiracial culture to drive the business. Our aim is to deliver the message to publics with different background. Not everyone can understand English 100%. To avoid language barrier, we need to deliver the message in a language that can be understood by our key publics. Thus, it is important for us to learn and practice other languages too.
I am absolutely agree with you about the skills needed for every PR practitioner. Communicating with people and writing skills are two essential skills for PR practitioner as it can bring you further too.
I learn other languages through reading, movies and songs too. Although Malay language is my mother tongue, I admit that I had a bit of problem when doing a proof-reading work on press release in Malay language as I didn't frequently read and write in proper Malay language anymore after high school. I need to sharpen back my knowledge in Malay. The key is to keep on practising.
Wishing you all the best for your internship too, Renee!
Cheers,
Fazar
Hi my fellow intern,
It was so much fun working with you. As you know my 1st day of work was pretty much the same as yours, just that I had to do a media monitoring for Volkswagen.
Language barrier is definitely a problem especially in a multi-cultural and a multi-racial country like Malaysia. As you may remember, initially I could not do the media monitoring for the Malay or Chinese news. Later on I got to know that there are often similar news published in English which can be used to summarize the news. Moreover, if I have friend like you who knows Malays then that is the best help ever.
Cheers
Raiyana.
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