Decisions November 24, 2008

I’ve just made a recent decision that will change the course of my life thus far.  So many of us college students do not know what we want to do with our lives.  We try different classes, change majors and are seniors for more years than we are supposed to be. 

I don’t think there is anything wrong with that picture.  During this time of life we are supposed to be finding out what we want to do.  Who wants to go back to school when they are 30 because they thought about doing something way-back-when and never followed through, either because it would take a lot more school, money or time? 

Well, I’ve decided what I want to do.  I want to be an elementary school teacher. 

Did I have some horrible experience with Public Relations?  No.  I really enjoy all of my classes and the teachers that I have, but, I think that somewhere along the line you realize what you really want to do and you either stay on the path that you are on and never really find that “purpose” and satisfaction that comes with a love for your job or you make that change no matter how many more hoops you have to jump through.  For some people it happens once, others twice, and even others three times.  I would start to worry when you get to four .

Let’s Put In a CD…the Death of ANR’s November 17, 2008

As I was working on my ANR today, I couldn’t help but think that it was something that has a dying life.  If you think about it, everything on the Internet usually comes with video.  My husband hates listening to the radio because of all of the commercials, and I know that he is not the only one.  I have my occasional urge to leave it on the classical music station because those songs go on FOREVER.  SIRIUS doesn’t even have any commercials except for every great once in awhile.  And, how many people have IPODs that they can plug in and listen to whatever they want whenever they want?

Am I anti-ANR’s, oh maybe because I have to actually write one, but other then that, no.  Almost every time I listen to the radio I hear one, and really, that’s only about once or twice a week.  Maybe, by saying that ANR’s have a dying life I am also saying that radio in general has a dying life.  There are those avid news listener’s but even they, with a click of a mouse, can have all of the news they would ever want to read at their fingertip.  So, what do you think?  CD’s or radio for you?

MSN November 7, 2008

So, everytime I log into my e-mail, MSN always puts up that first page of news headlines before I click to go to my inbox, such as “All-Cash World, In a Financial Crises, Let’s Shop Like Our Granparents.”  I must say that when I am bored I do click on some of these stories and read them.  They are not bad!  For some reason I thought they would be all about advertising, but they weren’t.  They give good advice and news.  I know in a round-about way they do advertise because the more people that go to them will click on the surrounding advertising banners, but all the same, they are still good to read.  And they include all kinds of different topics.

The one I most recently read was titled “Random Acts of Kindess.”  It was a bunch of quotes from different people talking about some nice things they had done, even though many of them didn’t feel like doing them.  To me, it was inspiring.  In this post I just wanted to say, “Good job MSN people for putting out good articles to read when I am bored.”

The site for the story I read is http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/just-dreaming/articlerb.aspx?cp-documentid=9130564&GT1=32001

Orissa, India November 3, 2008

While I was doing more research about my topic (world hunger with an emphasis on children) I ran across some news about Orissa, India, at http://www.gfa.org/orissa-update.  Here are some of the facts I found on the site.

Three more believers were martyred and twelve others were severely wounded in a fresh wave of violence in Orissa, India, on September 30. The latest attacks occurred in villages near Kandhamal, which has been the epicenter of violence against Christians since August 22.

The violence in Orissa came as attacks in two other Indian states targeted a Christian pastor and a Bridge of Hope center.

An estimated 30 Christians have been killed and thousands of others have lost their homes since Hindu extremists went on a rampage after their leader, Swami Laxmananda Saraswati was murdered. His followers are seeking revenge for his death, for which Christians have been blamed. However, Maoists have claimed responsibility for the murder.

It sounds a little like Rwanda to me.  I think the sad part about it is the fact that I had heard nothing of Orissa, India, in the news.  I know the economic crises, bail-out plan, presidential election, etc., are all very important things that our nation is focused on right now, but I think the genocide that is happening in Orissa, India, is just as important.  The sad part is that genocide is happening in so many other places that we don’t know about as well. 

Anyway, I just found this sight and it increased my awareness.  I figured if it was something that might interest you, you should take a look.  It is a pretty easy web-site to get around on and they have all kinds of pictures, videos, news releases, etc., to keep people up-to-date on what is going on around the world.

Qualities for PR October 25, 2008

Lately, I have been thinking about what kinds of personality traits a person who chooses to work in Public Relations should have or at least be willing to work on.  I must admit that I need to work on a few of these myself. 
Qualities that are beneficial to someone working in the field of PR:
1.  Enjoy working with all kinds of people
2.  Not being a procrastinator (my biggest problem)
3.  Being organized
4.  Like to write
5.  Are creative (I’m also lacking in this department)
6.  Have strong communication skills
7.  Articulate clearly both with the written and spoken word
8.  Able to understand a variety of people
9.  Are confident
10.  Are quick learners
11.  Are persuasive
12.  Think quickly

Six through twelve are ones I found at http://marketing.about.com/od/exploremarketingcareers/p/prspclist.htm, it’s an interesting site that includes facts about the pr specialist job field.  Don’t worry if you do not have all of these qualities, I’m sure not many people do.  I always look at is as something I can work on to make myself better!

Crossroads October 22, 2008

I work on the magazine here at school called Crossroads.  I was thinking today about how it is definitely a PR type of project.  Crossroads is an alumni magazine, so we write stories about what is going on around the school, where alumni are now, sports, etc.  We do not put any adds in this magazine.

I recently wrote a story for the magazine about some of the International students here on campus and it was a really fun experience.  As a reporter, you have to make your story look good, as well as who you are working for.  And, for this type of story you can only write the good things.  For instance, if one of the students said it was hard keeping up their grades, you may want to write about a different topic like what their favorite subject is or something along those lines.

My conclusion is that when alumni (or anyone) read this magazine, they will see what a great school MSSU is, that they are still a part of it and will hopefully want to be involved by donating money, starting programs, volunteering, etc.  Plus, it gives students a great opportunity to work on a professional magazine.  I really enjoy working on Crossroads, Mrs. Clark is really nice, so if you still need a practicum, think about it for next semester!

Job Perspectives October 15, 2008

For this post I decided to look up some information on jobs in the public relations department.  Luckily, all of the things I found were positive.  If you would like to visit the site where I received all of my info. it is the bureau of labor statistics website at http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos086.htm#nature.

Of course, we all know that the best people for the job are those who went to school for it and actually have experience in the field, but what exactly is the field for public relations?  According to the website above “Public relations specialists handle organizational functions such as media, community, consumer, industry, and governmental relations; political campaigns; interest-group representation; conflict mediation; and employee and investor relations. They do more than “tell the organization’s story.” They must understand the attitudes and concerns of community, consumer, employee, and public interest groups and establish and maintain cooperative relationships with them and with representatives from print and broadcast journalism.”

That is really a pretty broad job description, but it goes on to say the PR specialists draft news releases and contact the right people to get them in the paper, they keep up contacts, write up TV reports and Magazine articles, etc.  So, basically a lot of writing a talking to people.

Many public relation jobs are concentrated in big cities, and employment is expected to grow 18% until 2016.  That is faster than average for all occupations.  That sounds good to me as a PR major, well everything except the big city part!

A Leaning Story October 3, 2008

I don’t really know if that title makes sense in your mind, but let me explain my train of thought.  I think one of the easiest things for a writer to do is to side their story, in other words, to show favoritism (or not) to whatever they are writing about.  The technical term for this would be making their story subjective instead of objective.  I believe it can be done subconsciously a lot of times and with one or two words that carry a positive or negative connotation.

The example I want to use for this story is a news release I found at www.ap.org about the VP debate.  The title of the article is, “Palin says debate went well as polls favor Biden.”  The article says that people thought that Biden won the debate, but a higher percentage of the people liked Palin more.  To me, the title is a little misleading and sounds a little like they want to make Palin out as a sort of lier.  In this article the writer comments that Palin “appeared confident and folksy.”  The definition of the word ‘folksy’ is friendly, informal and unsophisticated.  I guess that is not so bad but it does kind of put a spin on things, making her out to sound like someone not very capable of being the VP. 

Really, the article is not too bad, it just happened to be the one I chose to analyze.  I just wanted to point out that everything can have a spin to it, even if you may not realize it.  The article link is posted below.

  http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VICE_PRESIDENTIAL_DEBATE?SITE=MOSPL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

1 in 3 Women Will Develop Cancer…… September 29, 2008

….at some point in their lifetime.

For some reason that fact caught my eye today on an article I found on PR Newswire.  The article goes on to give statistics to show that a lot of women “lack the basic information they need to help protect them from a cancer diagnosis.”  Honestly, I would probably be one of those women.

The bright side of the article is that there is going to be a television show, Frosted Pink With a Twist, contributed to informing women about these things.  The show will have on it some of the Olympic Champions of the 2008 games (mostly the men and women gymnasts), big name music artists, such as Cyndi Lauper, Natasha Beddingfield and Jesse McCartney, people from Dancing With the Stars, etc.  The show will begin on October 12 from 4-6 p.m.  The embedded video in the press release  I read (posted at the bottom) was pretty cool.  It looks like it will be pretty entertaining. 

Like I said, I am one of those women who doesn’t know a lot about how to fight or look for signs of cancer, but this type of show would definitely be one I would be interested in watching.  I think it’s a really good idea, it kind of reminds me of those little kid’s shows that actually teach kids something.  I hope that you guys will take a look at the article (at least watch the video).

http://www.prnewswire.com/

Hungry Children September 21, 2008

Every day, nearly 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That amounts to one child every 5 seconds.

I grabbed the fact above from the Compassion International Website (compassion.com).  My focus is on starving children so I thought I would discuss it in this post.

So, a child dies every 5 seconds.  I can’t even comprehend that statement in my mind!  Now, think about all the food we waste.  I know, it’s not something that we can wrap up and mail to them, but I’m just saying look at all the food we don’t eat when a child is dying….every 5 seconds from starvation.  There are many organizations out there trying to help these children and Compassion International is just one of them.  The way they do it is that you sponsor a child for $32 a month.  That money pays for food, school, necessities, etc.  I think that is pretty cool.  They also have 24 centers in different countries around the world that distribute the aid, as well as give the communities food and water in times of crises.

My friend and I used to sponsor a child and we both paid $16 a month.  We would get drawings, pictures and letters from him.  His name was Eduardo and I still have everything he sent.  I hope that once my husband and I get our finances figured out we will be able to sponsor someone.   The way I see is, if I have to skip out on pumpkin spice frappuccinos for a month for someone else to be able to eat, then so be it.

If you are interested in checking it out here is the link: http://www.compassion.com/default.htm

They have good stories on the site, as well as current press releases about things going on in the world and how they are helping.