PR WRITING: Chapter 8 Response

This Chapter gave more information on backgrounders. It laid out a good method of going about doing them.

Takeaway 1: The section on biographical sketches stood out to me because the bullet points gave ample examples of information you could include while writing about an important person in the company you are covering. While I was doing my backgrounder assignment I found it somewhat difficult to find an abundance of information on the CEO. The book gives many examples that I would have loved to use had I had the information.

Takeaway 2: The next takeaway was regarding the explanation of the descriptive lead. I think that method could be extremely useful and the example given was very helpful and clear. My writing is usually not very descriptive, therefore the example and explanation showed me that descriptive writing can be useful in the PR field.

Takeaway 3: The last takeaway has to do with matte releases. Not only is it cool to finally know what those things are called when I see them in a newspaper, I think it’s a fantastic way to promote a product. I was however, surprised by the steep costs of running them in the newspapers.

This chapter was informative and helped better delve into how to create a backgrounder on a company. While I have done other assignments in other classes like a competitive analysis, SWOT analysis, and executive summary; I have never heard about or done a backgrounder before. The whole chapter was new material for me.

The information presented in this chapter is both applicable in my current life and will be applicable in my professional life as well. Luckily I can hone the skills to create a successful backgrounder now and practice until I get the methods right. Hopefully by the time I am a PR professional I will have mastered the methods of effectively producing a good backgrounder.