An interesting call...

Hello again friends!

Hope you have been doing great.

I had a great experience a few days back and would love to share it with you guys.

I was at work, and it was just another day….and then I received a phone call from a random number. I picked up thinking perhaps it is one of my friends, but it turned out it was an editor from Berita Harian, one of the leading Malaysian newspapers read in Malaysia. The editor was enquiring whether we have any of our health sector clients available for interview ASAP. I was very excited and told the editor I would get back to her as soon as I confirm with my colleagues. As soon as I hung up, I told my supervisor, who was very impressed that I had built good enough connections with the media that they were personally calling me. It was indeed very exciting!

We both got researching on which client would be the best for the interview. Perception Management Sdn Bhd has quite a few private hospitals as clients. Therefore, we selected the best one for the interview, Tropicana Medical Centre Kuala Lumpur. I contacted the PR person of the hospital and asked him to find a doctor willing to speak about the topic as soon as possible, and I booked a date and time with the doctor within half an hour. The best part was yet to come. Normally the patients do on agree on talking to the media about their experiences during the disease, but luckily a patient agreed! I had to inform the good news to the editor as soon as the doctor and patient agreed. The editor was pleased with the client we had picked and agreed to meet two days later.

My colleague had to accompany me of course as I had absolutely no experience in carrying out an interview. We took the train, and then a taxi to the hospital and waited for the journalist and photographer to come, the doctor was ready for the interview. My colleague had given me instructions on how to greet the media and the doctor; she even gave me topics for small talk. We first exchanged cards with the media, and got to know them a bit better. I had to prepare about 15 questions that the doctor would be comfortable talking about and share them with the journalist. This is done in order to keep the journalist within a certain limit, as their curiosity can sometimes be considered rude by the interviewee. The list of questions I had made was approved by the PR person of Tropicana Medical Centre prior to the interview. We then entered the doctor’s office, got introduced to each other, shared business cards and sat down. I was told to bring three copies of the questions with me, one for the doctor, one for the journalist and one for me to refer to and make notes on. I found a limitation here because the journalist from a Malay media, the whole interview was carried out in Malay language. Although I do understand Malay, I am not fluent at speaking it which limited my contribution in the interview but overall it was successful.

The interview lasted for about two hours, followed by lunch in the hospital café where we socialized and ate food. We said goodbye to the journalist with one last question “when is the interview going to be published?” She said she would contact me the day before it was published, and she did. The interview was published on the main page of the newspaper covering two pages in extensive detail. Thankfully everyone at the office was very pleased and “patted my back” for handling the interview very well. I would say this was one of my best experiences during my internship!