Photo: Jon Culver
This week has seen a few bizarre changes in my life to say the least. As most of you will know, I got a call recently asking me to go on Japanese national TV.
"Great!" I though. I went to university the next day and casually mentioned it to my friends and Gary, my radio tutor. Aside from his first response (which was that they were making a documentary on a crazy eccentric like myself), he seemed quite interested. "I'll do an email to Debbie to let her know the good news".
Since then, things have snowballed somewhat. The return replies from Debbie were very enthusiastic - "let's get him to write some paragraphs that can be used for publicity, and get LSJ TV to cover it". So fair enough, I drafted some paragraphs about what had transpired.
The next email came from Barnie, one of the senior TV lecturers. I had asked him what sort of idea he had for LSJ TV. The return reply was very...interesting. Barnie went on at length how this would not only benefit me, but the university as a whole. He had forwarded on the email to Thirzah in the press office who is now drafting a press release for the local (and possibly national media). I even got an email from the Vice Chancellor congratulating me on my achievement.
A gramophone similar to mine. Photo: Lokarta
Of course, any publicity is good publicity and it all helps for my CV (not many people can say their hobby has got them on Japanese TV) but this comes with a small feeling of unease. It's pretty evident that my tutors looked at my story and rubbed their hands with glee. Why? Because it's a huge PR coup for the university.
Think about it. I can practically see the headline in Thursday's Echo - "Lincolnshire student achieves international fame for hobby". As journalism students we are always taught to be wary of PR people, but it appears I have unwittingly become a cog in the huge PR machine
No comments:
Post a Comment