Reflection, Unit 2.2

Photo from Pexels.

Photo from Pexels.

In this unit of PR writing, we looked at the basics of news writing. We started by examining news elements, followed by the ABCs of Journalism and finally finished with the two most important parts of a news release; the lede and the bridge. 

This unit was a very good refresher for me. I have had several writing classes in the past, but not one geared to public relations. The others taught me the basics of news writing and even touched on some PR. This was the first time I got an in-depth look at public relations writing. 

I learned some really helpful things this unit. The acronym SPICE COPPS -- suspense, prominence, immediacy, conflict, emotion, consequence, oddity, proximity, progress, and sex -- is a great way to remember the news elements. I previously learned about seven news elements and was a little unsure of what counted as news. This part of the unit greatly cleared that up for me. 

Switching to an PR slant, we looked at the Big Five values (consequence, interest, timeliness, proximity, prominence) and where they fit in public relations writing. We also learned about the ABCs of Journalism, which are the basic principles of news writing. I think it is very important to know how to write accurate, brief and clear pieces since journalists are our main audience in public relations. 

To write an effective, interesting piece, you must know how to structure your writing, especially when writing a news release, with which we studied next. This section was very specific on the finer points of writing a news release. The biggest thing that I got from it was the Dateweek tool. In my previous learning, I was never given a direct formula of expressing a "when" element in news writing. I will always rely on Dateweek, now that I know the proper way of stating a "when" element. 

We finished the unit with the parts of a news release; the lede, the bridge and the body. The lede serves as our attention-grabber. The bridge amplifies the story and gives the next important information, like names of people identified in the lede, the source of opinions, updates from a previous story and secondary facts needed in the story. The body is where everything else goes, like quotes. Here, I think the most important tip for writing quotes was emphasized: use quotes sparingly. Quotes should only be used when someone says something unique, when someone says something uniquely, or when someone important says something important. 

Overall, I feel like many things were cleared up for me. Now, I would like to know how to come up with impacting ledes that grab attention, which is my pitfall, and how to discern whether one piece of information is more important than the others. 

As future public relations professionals, we need to know how to communicate well on paper and how to pique interest. I always knew that writing accurately and concisely is paramount in public relations. This unit presented a good basic foundation upon which to build strong writing skills. Needing to know what is news and what isn't news is key, along with how to write the parts of a news release, since so much that we will be doing is writing news releases. 

After having gone through this unit, I can safely say that I am ready to pursue the next challenge of actually writing a news release. With this information, I am confident that I will be able to write a substantial news release.