Hello there!
I'm Kimberley, from the Charles Telfair Institute, Mauritius.
I am actually writing from the office, I've got some time after a hard day's work. Overall I feel like working in the PR field looks a lot like what we have seen during our studies, while having some differences, of course!
I've been doing a lot of media monitoring so far, which enabled me to better familiarize with the firm's clients and to understand how demanding and time consuming it all is. I've been so scared at first to miss important articles in the newspapers concerning the clients that I ended up reading every article instead of just passing through, loosing a lot of time of course!
In those few days I've also learnt a new thing; press digests.. Never heard of them before! It actually is a list of all the times the client or its competitors have been mentioned in the media in a given month. I thought it was kind of boring to do, but in the end, it is very useful to the client, in order to know what is being said about them, or their competitors, or if they should in the future generate more coverage to compete more on the media sphere.
And today I was asked to draft my first media releases.. STRESS! I was wondering what I would be writing, if I would have enough information to have a decent media release.. In the end, turns out it was not so bad. My supervisor told me it was good and only needed a few corrections.. I was quite proud of myself..
To sum up, that first experience in the PR field, so far, is not as bad as I thought.. I am learning new things, confirming what I already knew, and improving my self-confidence concerning my skills..
See you later people!
Kimberley Cunden
CTI MRU
3 comments:
Hello Kimberley!
Thanks for sharing your experience during your internship programme.
I have already finished my three weeks internship programme. Same as you, I have also been doing a lot of media monitoring in the past three weeks and I still need to do it everyday. So I need to read through 8 newspapers with three languages (Chinese, English and Malay) per day and cut it down, clip it in file. It really give me a chance to improve my English and Malay language because before I only read newspapers with "my native language".. lol.. I enjoy it! Hope you enjoy it also. :)
Besides, "press digests"? Wow! I really never heard it before! Thanks for sharing this new knowledge for me! And through your explanation, I know it really important and help company a lot in their future because PR people not only have to know how the stakeholders look at them but also need to know how the stakeholders look at their competitors then just can have the clear and accurate direction of making communication strategy in order to achieve company's objective.
Be praised by supervisor is really an encouragement for us as an intern. Continue to remain your enthusiasm of your internship programme. Learn more and know more! :)
All the best in your placement! Hope to read more of your post soom! ;)
Regards,
Corina Ling
Curtin Sarawak
Hello Kimberley,
I find your post really interesting, especially when you talk about things that you haven't heard before. I've come across the same situation and I felt a mix of feelings where I was afraid but how exalting it was to learn new things. I believe that's the real challenge of our internship and it really defines its purpose; our ability to learn new things and understand its meaning while applying it to our practice.
I think that we are now ready to learn and move a step further while getting to test ourselves on a new level to improve as a professional, but also as a human being. As you already know, there is no proper definition found about Public Relations. And Public Relations is not only about finding strategies and getting to give advice to people but it’s also about learning on ourselves to better communicate, adapt and understand other people’s mind and feelings to better comprehend their needs.
I’ve come to work on my first event today and I’ll share it with you because I think it might help you or others through your internship later on. I had to work on a CSR project and I realized that it was not all about planning and organizing things for them, in a PR vision, but I realized that I had to understand the people working there first to understand what they really needed. I went to look out at different documents and works that they had done in the past and understood that they had a real culture and felt very part of it; How proud they were of their founders and how it was reflected in everything that they communicated. In line with this, I will insist on the fact of the importance of each and every detail in PR. For example, if you miss a small detail like understanding the foundation of a company’s culture, you’ll succeed in giving them a good service but I understood that you’ll really turn around the purpose without reaching its very soul.
I hope my experience will help you at some point and I can’t wait to share and read more of your understandings.
See you later.
Beatrice Etiennette
15633006
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