Tricky questions

I was recently asked….

“Was there ever a time where you questioned your interest in working in the media industry? What happened and what caused you to reconsider?”

My (not so) brief response:

In the summer of 2011, I was approached with an internship opportunity with Black Card Media, an online and print media company who published a college newspaper called The Black Sheep. The Black Sheep is an edgy, satirical newspaper geared towards the interests and lives of typical college students. The company was interested in starting a new branch of the paper at VCU and I was offered the position of campus manager as well as editorial manager. I was given the task of assembling a staff of writers and a marketing team. After about three months of finding writers, brainstorming story ideas, editing articles and searching for venues to distribute the paper, we finally launched the first issue of The Black Sheep at VCU in October 2011.

Shortly after the launching of our first issue, Style Weekly, a very well known and established newspaper in Richmond, approached me wanting to do an interest story on our student-run paper that was quickly gaining popularity on campus. I took a call from a friendly reporter who asked me questions regarding the casual and sarcastic style of the paper. Two days later a very condescending and mean-spirited article was printed making a mockery of the paper and our efforts to provide students with entertaining reading material that is relevant to college life.

I was shocked at how a group of professionals would be so underhanded and seem so friendly; even send a photographer to photograph us at a campus event, and then write an article that would essentially discourage and dampen the spirits of our staff who worked so hard at launching this paper from scratch. We had all taken our jobs with The Black Sheep because it seemed like amazing learning opportunity for us as students and way to gain journalistic experience while contributing something to our school.

Until then I had only had experience networking and meeting with PR professionals in Richmond, all of whom were extremely helpful and encouraging to students trying to pursue a career in their field. I admit that I was naïve to the fact that a journalist could so easily appear to have my best interests in mind when in fact they’re intentions were the complete opposite. This caused my entire outlook on the media industry to change. This was my first personal experience dealing with negative press and naturally it made me question my involvement with the paper and with our entire project in general. I did not want my name to be associated with a negative article, especially when my words were spun so far out of context. I was even considering resigning my position with the paper. After taking a step back and speaking with my supervisor and a few of my mentors in public relations, I realized that this is what a career in PR is all about. I came to the realization that I would inevitably have to deal with a lot of negative press in my career if I intended to pursue a career in media. Although my first negative experience came earlier than I had hoped it would, it has made me a stronger person by learning to deal with the situation as well as coming up with ways to fix it.

A few months later I arranged for The Black Sheep at VCU to team up with VCU’s PRSSA chapter on our X-Out Homelessness campaign. Together we advertised the campaign in our paper and my supervisors at Black Card Media agreed to match any amount of canned goods that we received as donations during our campaign. This partnership definitely helped the image of the paper and showed our readers within the community that although the paper is about college life and the “fun stuff” that comes along with it that we also have the community’s interests at heart and that we are able to benefit the community through our readership and contribute to such a great cause.

I later learned that the people at Style Weekly might have felt threatened by our paper and the fact that we were after the same sponsors and advertisers, and used the story as an attempt to create bad press for our paper to discourage businesses from advertising with us. In retrospect, I am thankful to have had this experience because it taught me a lot about dealing with the press and how to move past negativity. It is an experience that actually ended up reinforcing my passion for public relations and I think back on it a lot while moving forward in my career.