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Guest blog: moving to the dark side

15-Dec-09 10:57

"Typical PR", my embittered news desk colleague would say, slamming down the phone, "Probably spends all day filing her nails and sending out one press release a week which is no good to us anyway. And probably gets paid more than us as well."

That may be a bit of an exaggeration but it's not that far from the scene that is played out on news desks up and down the country by journalists with a somewhat jaundiced view of the PR industry.

But now I have crossed the threshold and gone from being a journalist to freelance PR, or ‘moved to the dark side' as it is known, I have discovered an entirely new world which is a long way from the ill-informed stereotype that a lot of hacks hold to be true.

I left the roller-coaster world of newspapers in March this year, 09, after ten years at the print-face as it were, during which time I had some of the biggest laughs, encountered the worst kind of tragedy, met some amazing people and generally felt privileged to spend my time writing stories about Bristol and the South West while getting paid for it.

As a freelance working from home, now I find my days and weeks are just as unpredictable and challenging and this will come as no surprise to anybody reading this but to achieve a level of success at PR it takes bloody hard work.

Funnily enough I don't spend my days filing my nails (or the male equivalent) and knocking out a press release every couple of weeks. I spend my time working hard for the clients I do have, writing releases, coming up with campaign ideas and persuading over-worked and under-resourced news editors to look at the stories I'm pitching. As well as that I'm constantly looking ahead to where the next bit of business is coming from and whether I can resist having to fill out the Asda application job form for another six months.

I have worked for several agencies in the Bristol area now and taken on some fairly hefty one-off projects which have seen me working round the clock and even at weekends, which isn't something I was overly-inclined to do on the newspaper.

So it has been a refreshing change for me but one that I am enjoying immensely, not least because Bristol is such a fantastic place to live and work with a really vibrant media industry.

Simon Peevers, editorial consultant

 

 

Entrepreneur or workaholic?

01-Dec-09 16:32

I’ve spent another weekend waking up at unearthly hours thinking about my teams, clients and the next steps in the development of the business. I was working by 6.00am on Saturday & Sunday morning – why? Because once I start thinking, I can’t stop. I need to get up and start writing my ideas down and taking action on the decisions I’ve made.

Then my family wakes up. “Ahh, the workaholic is at it again,” says my nearest and dearest. But how can I possibly be a workaholic when I am thinking of new ways to take Ascent PR forward, thinking about how we can improve our services and identifying new opportunities? I’m under the impression that a workaholic just works for the sake of it – whereas an entrepreneur is constantly deliberating new ideas, with a passion for their business. I know of several other people that do the same, whether it’s not going to bed until the early hours, waking in the middle of the night, or being an early bird, it’s the desire and enthusiasm that sets us apart from the workaholics, not makes us one.

Sara Lewis