What is the appeal of jobs in media relations?

Whose started in media relations as an intern, but really was manning the concessions stand at some dinky minor league park?

 

If both of you look at your jobs so simplistically, neither one of you is doing it effectively.

 

and to that, i call bullshit. every person gets sick and tired of a hard sell when they don't want to buy something. this is no different.

 

Call bullshit all you want. Maybe it's idealistic of me, but a writer's job is not to sell newspapers ... it's to tell the truth, educate and inform. Have you lost sight of that?

 

and if you don't sell the paper, you'll be writing for nobody.

 

I'm currently a PR intern for a pro sports team while I'm in college. I have also interned for a publication about the same sport for a year prior to my internship and I'm also currently a sports blogger as well.

Anyways, I love the media relations side of sport. I don't know if I'd say the hours are better, but it's not as stressful as journalism and your hours seem more structured. On non-game days, you work 9-5pm (with a few exceptions). On game days, you have to get to work X number of hours before the game starts and you tend to stay X number of minutes/hours after the game finishes. For a 7:30pm start, we are there from 9am - 11pm with an hour break for lunch and about 30 minutes before the game for dinner. For an afternoon game, my boss will get there around 7:30/8am and leave an hour or so after the game (this all gets earlier during the playoffs). And just like sports journalism, the pay isn't great either, but you can earn a pretty penny depending on where you go and you're title.

Plus, I like working for a team and being able to root for your team. Obviously, you're not unprofessional about it, but I enjoy being allowed to have a favorite and wanting to see the team you work for succeed. It's also nice not having a deadline that you're trying to get a story out by, I leave the arena (as an intern) while the reporters are still busy writing their articles (and I always feel bad because they look so stressed). That's just my two cents as an intern.

 

That's been my selling point as I've tried to move into PR/media relations. It hasn't worked for me. Everyone wants PR/MR experience. WELL HOW IN THE HELL DO I GET THE EXPERIENCE?

 

Ah, yes I have. Many, many times.

Those pre-game notes aren't written the day of the event, at least not in my world. And the custodial staff has been turning out the lights for years.

The number of scribes still writing when the media staff clears out is routinely in double figures.

Can't comment on the pay because I never asked. I figured it wasn't any of my business.

 

What hopefully happens is you find an organization that is smart enough to realize that your years as a reporter makes you better qualified because you know how a reporter thinks, and what a reporter would want. That's how my wife broke into it, and at a fairly prominent national organization, too. That ended up helping everybody because she could anticipate what would be a big story, and what no one would care about, and what questions reporters would ask. What was great, too, about this job was that she could never serve as a spokeswoman (had to have an executive serve in that capacity), so she never had to be on the line for what she said. It also helped me learn a lot about how to better work with media relations people myself, because I learned a lot about what happens behind the scenes.

Depending on where you go, the hours and pay can be better, but I wouldn't move into media relations with those expectations alone. My wife left that particular job after delivering our third child because the expectations of the job were to put in longer and longer hours that she wouldn't be able to give. Also, the pressure can be enormous because, as one poster said, if you screw up something, you've now screwed a whole organization, and you're on the unemployment line pretty fast.

The best thing is to find an organization or company that you intrinsically respect, or are down with what they do. Just like any other job, really.

 

I haven't read all the posts, but here are some big advantages: an offseason of a couple of months, (generally) better hours, and you don't have someone screaming at you at midnight, "Where's that damn page??!!"

 

Examples you can give? Vague is fine.