Hi everyone!
As I started my internship at the not-for-profit organisation Mouvement d’Aide à la Maternité (MAM), I was told there was no proper PR department over there. So I figured out I would be able to show them all the different techniques I learnt at the university and impress them.
“I've never been so wrong!” (Thorin, The Hobbit)
One of my first tasks for MAM was to draft a media release for a double event – an incoming press conference and the visit of the Minister of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare. One of the members sent me all the information needed, and my supervisor told me to write the text, without the title, name or date.
I used all the knowledge I had about writing techniques for media releases: use of inverse pyramid format, lead, one sentence per paragraph etc. As I proudly submitted the draft to my supervisor, thinking she would be impressed by the work she said: “that’s all? What will the journalist be writing in his article?”
As a former journalist, she told me the articles here are written differently. Furthermore she told me the journalists would not usually want to add much, that is why we have to do all the work and send something they could simply publish in their paper.
The use of the Curtin style guide for writing articles is not applicable in Mauritius. Articles are written differently: long paragraphs, even some repetition. I honestly find the Curtin style a lot better for news reporting, but for application here, one must comply to the local customs.
I am not saying the techniques I learnt were completely useless: my supervisor told me she liked the fact that I was able to write all the needed information concisely, but for the future, I’ll have to blend the techniques I was taught with the customs of the country.
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