Bright star: Carly Smith (photo credit below)

Second year marketing and public relations student Carly Smith has been recruited on a year’s placement to gain work experience with Shooting Star PR, one of the fastest growing in the East Midlands.

The 19-year-old from Doncaster is working at Shooting Star PR on a part-time basis while she completes her studies.

“I’m excited about becoming involved with the business and learning from my new colleagues,” said Carly.

She already has a wide range of experience having worked at telecommunications company Focus 4 U, at Mortons Media in Horncastle, in the South Yorkshire Police media centre and as head of advertising for student newspaper The Linc.

She is currently the student representative for second year marketing students at the university.

Shooting Star PR Director Jez Ashberry said: “As soon as we met Carly we knew she would be a perfect fit for us. She’s bright, hard-working and resourceful and she already has plenty of experience to draw on. We’re sure she’ll be a fantastic Rising Star with a big future in PR.”

Jane Crofts, public relations programme leader and the university’s link with the Rising Stars scheme, added:

“I am delighted that I have been able to work with a local company to give the students some real world experience to enhance their employability once they graduate.

“I look forward to the relationship between the University of Lincoln and  Shooting Star PR developing over the years to come so that Carly can be recorded as the first Rising Star of many.”

Photo: Steve Hatton, Electric Egg

By Carly Ann Smith

The night of the 22nd February had finally arrived…..the big debate….. “Is PR killing real journalism?” The event was organised jointly by the University of Lincoln’s Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations department and the Lincoln School of Journalism. It was sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

Anita Raghavan, a journalist with Forbes magazine and Marc Wadsworth, a lecturer at City University and founder and editor of thelatest.com formed the journalists side. Andy Green, author, partner in Green PR and creativity entrepreneur and Peter Smith, a lecturer at Lincoln University with significant PR experience formed the PR team. The stage was set.

Both sides put forward some great points.  Anita claimed that PR practitioners were there to pull ‘the wool over people’s eyes’ and to deliberately shade the truth and even lie.

Andy Green didn’t feel the need to stay behind the lectern and read from notes. He was calm, collected and engaged with the audience. Using a glass of water to represent his point he argued there is no definitive truth, people are always biased and when things are placed in a large context their meanings can be changed. He wanted to work together with journalists to create better consumers of media and claimed we had a collective interest. This is a point contested by Anita saying she didn’t see any middle ground that they could meet on.

Marc described PR professionals and journalists as being in a ‘sickly embrace’ and claimed PR practitioners needed journalists more than they needed them. He wanted journalists to ‘return the spin’ instead of letting journalism become ‘churnalism’ – mere printing of press releases with no investigation.

Peter Smith said, “To be a good PR professional one had to think like a journalist.” Journalism isn’t dying it’s just changing. He emphasised we must ‘survive together or die separately.’

Questions flooded in from the floor with students (and lecturers alike) asking probing questions.

The debate posed a further question for many people: journalists attack PR for being biased, but surely the only difference between PR professionals and journalists is that PR professionals are transparent in their intentions? Everyone understands that they work for a particular company so their intentions are clear. It has been claimed that “any story that you look at will select some facts over others, highlight some opinions over others” – Is that not classed as spin because it was a journalist who said it?

The big result? 11 for and 34 against the notion that PR is killing journalism. Even PR practitioners wouldn’t claim this is a definitive result, to suggest however that it carries ‘next to no information at all’ defeats the object of having the debate. This is a debate that is unlikely to be settled and is undoubtedly one to watch. If journalists think that real journalism is in decline maybe they should look elsewhere for the cause…

One of the East Midlands’ fastest growing public relations consultancies has partnered with the University of Lincoln to develop an innovative training scheme for PR students.

Lava PR, which is based in the cathedral city but represents clients across the UK, launched ‘Conduit’ in association with the university’s BA (Hons) Public Relations degree course.

The scheme aims to provide one or two undergraduates with relevant work experience during the academic year and a permanent, full-time position with the agency on graduation.

“We will be offering final year students the chance to put their academic knowledge to good use in the ‘real world’ and gain an understanding of what life is really like in an energetic, creative and successful consultancy,” said agency head, Matt Hammerton.

“There’s a widespread belief amongst PR students that to do great work and to work with great people means getting a job in the capital. We want to show that there is another way – an entry into PR that gives a better standard of living without sacrificing big name client or big consultancy standards and which puts Lincoln and the East Midlands on the map as a centre of innovative, creative and effective PR.”

Jane Crofts, course leader for the PR degree at the University of Lincoln, is excited about the Conduit programme:

“Competition for the limited number of graduate places with the big London agencies is incredibly high, especially given the current economic climate, so it’s great news that a local consultancy is launching such an initiative. Matt and his team have experience of working for national consultancies and have established an exciting consultancy in Lincoln which is run to the same standards and systems as a much larger national agency, so I know the students that apply for Conduit are going to experience something very similar to a London consultancy but without the commute.”

Lava was established in 2006 and has since grown rapidly. Today, the consultancy works with the East Midlands Development Agency, RWE npower renewables and Enterprise UK’s Make Your Mark brand amongst others.

Arranged by CIPR student representative Lizzie Hunt, the Bucks Fizz reception enabled students and local PR practitioners to meet in a relaxed atmosphere.

Attendees included Andrea White from Spectrum PR, Matt Hammerton from Lava PR, Jez Ashberry from Shooting Star PR and John Giblin and Marianne Shaw from Lincolnshire County Council.

Students were also happy to welcome back former senior lecturer and course leader Chris Taylor who has been missed since leaving the university in 2007.

Among those taking full advantage of the event was Christopher Charnley, deputy editor of university magazine ‘Bullet’. He has since been in contact with Vogue magazine as a result of attending.

PR practitioner Andrea White said “this was a great opportunity to meet the next generation of media professionals. Their enthusiasm was like a breath of fresh air and we wish them well for the future in their chosen careers.”

Lizzie Hunt said “I really enjoyed the challenge of organising my first networking event. Luckily, I had my PR tutors Jane Crofts and Frank Davies to advise me and supply me with some useful contacts. I feel as though I have gained a significant achievement in my role as CIPR representative at my university”.

Photo shows Christopher Charnley and Lizzie Hunt