Yesterday was a bit of a strange day for me in the publishing sense. I was at a meeting at BootsnAll for some event coordinating that I’m doing for them, when the guys suggested we connect their efforts to open an office in Bali with the current news tragedy. I thought that a press release sent out to the national media covering the story would be a first start. A good story of balancing the continuation of the spirit of travel with such devastation. So, I spent a good part of the day writing the press release and pulling together the media list for our timely mailing. I was confident that this would be a good thing, and a great PR event for both sides of the media. BnA would get some good press, and the public would get a positive story.
Later in the evening I had a completely opposite assignment — to research the World Travel Watch travel advisory column while Larry and James are away in Nepal. I read story after story about the Bali night club bombing, and now I was reporting on the dangers of traveling to Indonesia. I left feeling numb and cautious, but still wanting to support international travel.
Today, I need to spend time and attention on both again. Instead of being a soapbox for either side, I’ll just sit back and do my jobs. Journalism is an interesting thing. Sometimes I find myself thinking back to all the PR I studied in college and wished I’d specialized in print instead. Unfortunately, it’s more in my nature to do the other. At the end of the day, all I know is that to get better at either, I’ll need to take some grammar classes and really improve my techinical abilities. Not very exciting, but what’s life without growth?