Hanging out with the Pirates

Hi all! My name is Emma and I am in my final semester at Curtin. In just a few short months I will have completed my Commerce degree and will (hopefully) be ready to step into the big wide "real world" as a graduate.

I am currently interning at a local music station in Fremantle - Pirate 88FM. Having been there since the last week of the mid-semester break, I’ll be the first to admit I am a bit late to write my first my blog post. Nevertheless, I now have plenty to tell. 

I was pretty intimidated by the whole experience at first. Having not done much in the way of work experience relevant to my degree, I came into the PR Internship unit with a slight “I’m not good enough” mentality. You know the one – where you feel like you’ll be at uni studying forever, then all of a sudden the end of your degree is near and it’s time to put theory into practice. Determined to be organised, I began searching for a placement a couple of weeks into the semester break. I googled, I applied, I rang, I waited. After weeks of no response, I started to freak out. Maybe I really wasn’t good enough? Was there something wrong with my CV? Did I apply for positions wrong? I was starting to get desperate.

As it turns out, I was just being impatient. I woke up a couple of days later with two offers waiting for me in my email inbox (that’s right, not one, but two!). One I had applied for weeks prior, and another I had found in a desperate attempt on Gumtree. After a bit of thought and consideration, I accepted the role at Pirate as I felt it offered more relevant and valuable experience. Plus it's a radio station - how fun is that?!

I have no doubt I made the right choice. The next day I threw together the most professional looking outfit I could find and made my way to the Pirate 88FM office in O’Connor, putting on a confident façade to hide my nerves.  As I sat with my supervisor my nerves flooded out the door within minutes and excitement set in. I already had so many ideas.

Pirate is a very young business. Founded in 2010, the station has very limited awareness and operates on a very limited budget (which, as it turns out, works out great for myself as it gives me lots of freedom to play around with ideas). For those who are unaware (and unfortunately I’m sure many of you are), Pirate 88FM is a local music station that is passionate about supporting the local music scene, giving local musicians as much exposure as they can. 70% of the music played on air is local music, and there is hardly any talkback. They are very community focused and consider themselves “the Fremantle sound”. Due to having a restricted license, the station is only broadcast in the Fremantle area, however can be streamed globally online.

I have only been with Pirate for a short time but I have already been tasked with, and accomplished so much. On my first day, I was asked to do a short write-up on that week’s 'Featured artist of the week', 'The Seals'. I was a bit daunted by the task at first. Having limited musical knowledge and no clue how to even describe an unfamiliar band, I had no idea how to start (although, I guess it is a music station - what else should I expect?). I jumped into some research and after reading a few online reviews, listening to a few songs and reading their bio, I found myself completing the write-up in less than half an hour. After showing it to my supervisor and getting the all clear, I was asked to put it up on their website, and I now do a write-up on a different band each week.

My first band write-up at Pirate

I’ve also been given the responsibility of updating Pirate’s website (as well as helping update their social media pages). If you have a visit, I’m sure you’ll agree it’s no secret the website needs a bit of work. After refreshing my memory on Wordpress and navigating my way around the confusing settings they currently have in place, I took some initiative and volunteered to redo the whole look and feel of their website (very cautiously I may add, I didn’t want to offend anyone!). They agreed the website needs a makeover and were happy for me to take on the task, so I’ve since been working on this as a “major” project at home. I will admit that I slightly underestimated the amount of work that goes into completely redesigning a website, but it’s a project I’m really excited about, and I can’t wait to see the new website go live. 

There is so much more for me to tell - events I’ve been able to help run and promote, bands I’ve helped interview, promotional material i've created, radio advertising I’ve helped produce (and voiced!) - but if I keep going this blog post will never end. I’ve made a very stern mental note to myself to not wait weeks before my next blog post! I will share some of the exciting things I've been up to soon.

Until then,
Emma.