Week 4 Activity

Journal entry number 6

SUSANNE LORRAINE HARFORD

Complete the following activity in your online journal.

NEWS ANGLES/NEWSWORTHINESS

You work for a PR firm who represent the Amateur Chess and Cheese Enthusiast Society. The society is planning on holding a 3 day long event celebrating their love of both chess and cheese.

Think of ways/news angles that could create media interest in this, otherwise dull, event.

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Week 4 Activity

This task outline seems (to me) to approach this subject (and this task) in quite the wrong way. Especially in the way the event and task are described, as there is is nothing “dull” – about the concept behind combining a difficult, arduous activity, with a consumable many people today find extremely attractive. Even though I have never warmed to chess, and I don’t eat much cheese (although I like it) – I still find the idea of a 3 day long chess and cheese event quite fascinating – and totally newsworthy in itself! If I knew where and when, and if open to the public I would probably not be able to resist a visit!

Four suggestions about approaches to the media to write about this event are:

1. Find out details on important professional world-chess champions, current and previous (authentic persons – of authority). Contact some of them, ask about their diet and specifically about whether they eat/like cheese. If so, ask them to name their cheese preferences – with the specific brands/ names where possible. Then write a press release that uses details about those authentic persons, and their quotes and compare that to the Amateur society. Provide Society contact details and specifically mention full details of their current 3 day event and whether it is open to the public.

2. Request to visit the Society’s premises with a photographer, and request an interview with the head of the Amateur Chess and Cheese Enthusiast Society. Ask for details about the Society: its mission statement and how, when, where and why the society began, and for details of any particularly interesting historical highlights. Ask what the Society’s future plans are, and why a 3 day event. Ask how and where the Society obtains their cheese supplies, the types of cheese their members consumed in the last year, and how much they consumed. Ask if any cheese-makers sponsor the Society and if so, their details. Use these details to write a press release about this unique Society, highlighting the Society’s contact details, and the current 3 day event including if it is open to the public.

3. Request personal interviews with and photographs of the youngest and oldest Society members. Find out their personal details, age, background, gender, the year each became a member, why/how they found out about the Society, and how they came to be members. Ask each if they have ever played against each other and their match/es outcome. Ask each if they are playing in the current 3 day event, and if they each really love both chess and cheese. Ask if they would recommend others join the Society. Write a press release using this information highlighting the Society’s contact details and full information about the current event and mention if it is open to the public.

4. Find out from the Society the brands of cheese they use. Contact the cheese suppliers and tell them you are going to offer to the media one exclusive chance to distribute a 4-day pictorial blog that you will keep. The blog will begin the day prior to, and culminate on the final match of, the event. The blog will highlight all interesting matches and details of the cheeses consumed, when and how, during the event. Ask the cheese maker to consider buying media advertising in conjunction with and alongside the blog.

END