A First Look into the Real World of PR

Mikayla Wearne 17081270 - Bentley


Hey everyone,

I have just completed the first week of my internship and this is my story so far!

I arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Friday the 1st of July, just two weeks after I had been told that I had been successful in attaining an internship in KL at Go Communications. This gave me the weekend to get to know the two other girls also completing an internship with GO, gather my bearings and explore the main city. Monday crept up fast and I was nervous going in on my first day, I was in another country and had no idea what to expect. To my delight we were warmly welcomed and each assigned to a team. There are 3 teams at GO, A-Team, Elite and Vuvuzela, I was placed in A-team. Each team has a list of clients they are responsible for, they conduct many different types of PR for these clients which is great because it means there is a lot of variety and lots to learn.




We were shown around the office which is medium in size, with around 30 employees. We were introduced to everyone, including the CEO Paul De Krester who is from Australia, his father, Michael De Krester was the CEO before him so it is almost like a family here, everyone seems very close.


We were then each given a desk with a computer and phone and given instructions on how to create a GO Communications email, how to access the intern folders, how to use the printer and scanner and what we should do everyday when we first come into the office. Everyday I needed to conducted online media monitoring too look for news mentions of the clients, media monitoring was an activity I had heard lots about but never actually conducted myself. I was told to use key words from any recent events or press releases sent as a benchmark for my searches and if that was not applicable, to do a general search including a search of key sponsors involved.










At lunch time I joined my team at a traditional Malay restaurant where I was able to try some local traditions and get to know my team members on a more personal level.



After arriving back in the office after lunch I was introduced to traditional media monitoring. Looking at every newspaper and magazine released on that day I was to search for news mentions of the clients, their competitors, mentions of their industry area and anything press related in regards to their company. After these had been found, I was shown how the articles needed to be presented for the clients’ records, I was shown how to find the PR value of these articles using a formula and made use of the Media Planning Guide.




The next day I was introduced to the process of compiling monthly reports for GO’s clients, these reports included an executive summary, overview of key activates, an activity time sheet, media effectiveness index, media coverage breakdown, press coverage and industry related news. This was all new to me as I hadn’t complied reports like this throughout my studies before. My main job for my second day was to complete the media coverage, press coverage and industry related news spreadsheets for the reports. This was quite a tedious job but nether the less I still enjoyed it and it defiantly gave me some new skills and knowledge.

As my first week was leading up to the Hari Raya festive season which is a “festive breaking of the fast,” I had the opportunity to gain a true understanding of this important tradition and look at some of the festive events our clients were hosting. At the beginning of my second week I helped create a note to the editor, event release and event listing for one particular clients’ “Open House Hari Raya Celebration.” I really enjoyed this task as I was able to convert my learning into practice and for the first time ever actually create these documents for real-life clients. I'm really excited to attend this event on Saturday and see first hand how an event like this plays out.

An example of the ever changing world of PR Deadlines at Go Communications

Deadlines. The fact that the word contains the word 'Dead' must mean its bad right? Its true, deadlines are a pain 99.9% of the time. Especially during them hectic weeks at university where every assignment is due at once and your losing sleep to make that 11pm turnitin deadline. One of the best things about university is deadlines are often given to you with a fair amount of time, I  mean its written on the unit outline. Even then, you can ask for an assignment extension! As much as we hate it, deadlines follow PR students from the classroom and out into the real world of Public Relations.

In my second week at Go I was unfortunate to not have a futuristic deadline as a luxury. In a week of work I had learnt that deadlines can change dramatically. Take for example, a proposal was given to Sarah and I for us to prepare a client presentation. We had till 4pm Monday. Perfect, it was still Friday morning and we aimed to start working on it after lunch Friday and finish it off Monday morning. Little work was achieved after lunch as media monitoring became a priority and by Monday morning we were only really just starting the power point. All good though because we had till 4pm right? . Wrong.  At 10:55am Monday our supervisor informed us of a change of plan and it was due at midday. Frantic, we pulled together a presentation (yes, we did it) and managed to have it completed by 12pm. The pressure was surprisingly a good thing, where we had to think quickly and smart to complete it.

To my fellow classmates completing their internships, the world of PR is constantly changing (as I'm sure your already aware). The media will change their deadlines, the bosses will change their deadlines and the client will change their deadlines. While sometimes stressful, being organised and being on top of your work at all times will ensure a smooth transition for when the workload due is moved forward a few hours.

Bec

Writing for Malaysian editors.

After the first two weeks of doing media calls and participating in events with GO Communications, it was time to do some writing. My leader gave me the task of writing an invitation to the minister for an event called LumiAir for our client Sunway Lagoon. I was able to use a template of previous invitations so this task wasn’t too challenging. However, I was then given the opportunity to draft a media release for another client, Sunway Lagoon.  As I have written many media releases for university, I felt comfortable with this task so I used the information available and put together a media release highlighting the key points of the new promotion Sunway Lagoon had to offer. I kept the information factual and to the point as we are taught in university and only put emotion and descriptions in the quotes. However, once I had looked at the template of how media releases were written in Malaysia I noticed a significant difference. The template had a lot more "fluff" and describing words. Therefore, I edited my draft and put some additional describing words into the media release.

My leader told me “the Malaysian editors are lazy, they want you to write the article for them, with all the descriptive ‘fluff’". I was taught to use extra adjectives and emotion in my writing to make it sound more like “PR”.   

I took this as a learning experience as I had to change the way I would normally write media releases to how it is expected in Malaysia. This could be applied for any consultancy I may work for in the future as they may have a specific in-house way of writing too.

 

Until next time,

Jessie