COMU1152 - Media Conference 2

In this lecture, we had Guest Speaker Frances Whiting, who is an author, journalist and public speaker. Firstly, Frances gave us some background information of how she became a journalist. From being a primary school teacher, a 28 she studied a batchelor of business/journalism over a time of 6 years. Following her studies, she got a job on a small paper on the North Coast, where there was little pressure to perform well and a great way of learning. Starting off in a small regional newspaper was her advice to get an opening into the industry. Soon after, Frances was offered a job in the Brisbane Sunday Mail, doing a piece for the EKKA, and has since continued for 16 years. She now has her own column in the Sunday Mail. Frances finds this an intimate form of writing, where viewers enter your world and feel they know you personally. She also gets an insight into the readers, which improves her writing career, as you know whos reading it, and who is writing to her. As she is also a feature writer for the Q weekend magazine, Frances has had to learn a few different style of writing. Her advice was learning to be flexible and versatile to suite your audience. As such, the Sunday Mail readers want to smile and laugh, whilst Q weekend is advertised as a formal magazine, where readers want to learn something and be directed to do something to help somebody. When referring to PR, she comments that if you don’t get a job, you can create your own job. This is as the industry is changing, but with this comes opportunity and new ways to get your voice heard. She recommends to build up relationships with journalists and to continually follow up after each story. Frances discusses the importance to love what you do. As you go into the world of PR, don’t forget your basics, build up your contacts, and be professional in every form of communication you can. I found this speech very inspirational, as I am concerned about the limited amount of jobs for PR out there. But she believed there are always jobs, sometimes you need to make your own.