"Overwhelming Press Releases Made Easy"... A Colleague as a 'One-Shot Instructor' for Enhancing Public Officials' Competence

Naju City Public Relations Planning Team Draws Attention with Media Response and Chat GPT Promotion Training

A local government has attracted attention as colleagues from the Public Relations Office themselves stepped up as one-shot instructors to strengthen the promotional capabilities of employees from other departments.

Usually, capacity building for public officials is conducted by inviting external experts, but the training by colleagues who have continuously worked in media-related tasks is being praised as fresh and effective.

According to Naju City on the 16th, on the 12th, a ‘Media Public Relations Practical Skills Enhancement Training’ was held in the city hall’s main conference room for about 60 team leaders and staff from the main office as well as eup, myeon, and dong offices.

This training was planned to share the importance of public relations work for guaranteeing citizens’ right to know and increasing trust in the 8th term of the elected administration, and to strengthen the promotional capabilities of individual employees across departments.

In particular, employees belonging to the Public Relations Planning Team, who are in charge of promotional work within the Policy Public Relations Office rather than professional instructors such as active journalists, reporters, or professors, volunteered as one-day instructors and delivered customized lectures considering the employees’ level, receiving favorable reviews.

The training proceeded in the order of ‘Promotion via Naju City’s official SNS accounts,’ ‘How to write press releases,’ ‘Media response,’ ‘Current status of media coverage and precautions when requesting coverage,’ and ‘How to use Chat GPT.’

Shin Jinjae, a public official in charge of press release tasks, explained sequentially about categorizing press releases by timeliness such as events, policies, and current issues, basic formats and principles, easy writing methods, and press photos under the theme ‘How to write press releases properly.’

He said, “In the flood of press releases, which can reach dozens or even hundreds per day in a saturated inbox, articles with uniform titles and sentences, and photos of backgrounds or banners have a very low chance of being reported.”

He emphasized, “It is necessary to write press releases with a well-structured format including a title that attracts readers’ attention, a lead sentence that breaks monotony, as well as background, expected effects, and future plans of the project or policy.”

He added, “Good photos have more impact than hundreds of words. Photos centered on people and active scenes, or photos that immediately convey the topic just by looking at them, increase the chances of coverage more than photos focused on backgrounds or banners.”

Following the press release writing session, training was conducted respectively on ‘Proper media response techniques’ by Oh Haejun, head of the Public Relations Planning Team, ‘Current status of press release distribution and precautions when requesting coverage’ by Baek Minji, a public official, and ‘How to use Chat GPT to assist in drafting press releases’ by Son Minsu, deputy director.

Seo Ye-eun, a public official from Yeongsan-dong, said, “It was an opportunity to learn the essential core parts necessary for writing press releases,” and added, “I will take an interest in and practice promotional work so that not only I but also my colleagues’ various projects can be well known to citizens and they can enjoy the benefits.”

Deputy Mayor Ahn Sanghyun said, “I hope this training served as an opportunity for colleagues who found media public relations work unfamiliar and difficult to empathize not only with practical skills but also with the importance of policy promotion,” and added, “In the second half of the year, we plan to conduct practical training where participants will write press releases and take photos directly on site.”

Naju = Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yukbong baekok@asiae.co.kr