Journalism alum Ryan Priest ('09) talks with students about PR role
UW News Lab
"I hesitate to call it journalism. It’s writing and it’s reporting but it’s much more about PR," said Ryan Priest, a 2009 journalism graduate of the University of Washington Department of Communication.
Priest works as a communication specialist for Sigma Chi Fraternity’s national headquarters in the Chicago area. In this role he writes and helps to produce a quarterly magazine that circulates to about 50,000 Sigma Chi alumni.
The UW News Lab class listens to alumnus Ryan Priest ('09) talk about his work as a communication specialist for Sigma Chi Fraternity.
The publication features upbeat articles about what alums are doing, as well as alumnus listings and obituaries. It aims to highlight the good things Sigma Chi alums are doing around the nation and the world.
Priest visited Karen Rathe’s Community News Lab class on Oct. 12 to discuss his career path and how his current job differs from traditional journalism.
Priest said working at a quarterly publication offers “more flexibility and time to hammer out a story with flushed-out details,” as opposed to the quick pace of regular news reporting.
He said working as a waiter and bartender during college gave him invaluable skills about how to put people at ease and figure out what makes them tick. These became handy things to know when conducting interviews for his organization.
He still uses all of the skills from News Lab and other journalism courses every time he interviews or sits down to write a story, he said. However, he is learning that working in public information is definitely different, and can be challenging.
“As long as you recognize the difference between PR and journalism and you try not to deceive people, you can make it,” Priest said. “But learning how to walk that line is the most difficult part. And I’ve been spending the past 13 months learning how to do it.”
Rebecca Collins, a senior majoring in journalism and a current News Lab student, enjoyed Priest’s visit. “It was great seeing Ryan again and hearing about his current job at the magazine,” she said afterward.
“As someone who is also involved in UW's Greek Community,” Collins said, “it is always interesting for me to see if friends end up working for their chapter's national organization.”
Priest’s visit came less than a week after the death of Carly Henley, a popular student in the Greek community who apparently committed suicide in a UW fraternity. The death shocked the entire campus, the Greek community in particular. Priest said most issues that arise about Greek life involve drinking; suicide is not something that usually comes up.
News of the death had reached Priest at his current home in Chicago and being an alum of the UW Greek community, he was forced to think of what the long-term effects of this tragic event could have.
“It has really opened the door for discussions about programs to deal with these situations,” said Priest. “Looking into what are the warning signs and who we can bring in to talk to these chapters. Now is the time to start looking at how to prevent this for the future.”
News Lab instructor Karen Rathe invited Priest to speak in hopes that it would show the students another option of work in a journalism-related field.
“I jumped at this opportunity because the field is in such transition right now, and I know that journalism students need to look at other options” for work, said Rathe. “It is a great opportunity for students to look at living in another part of the country and learn a lot about journalism in the process.”
It’s easiest to move forward in life when you’re able to bring along some elements from the past, according to Rathe. In Priest’s case, he already had such a deep involvement with his fraternity while at UW that it made the transition to the “real world” easier.
Rathe encourages students to explore public relations opportunities. “People may be passionate about journalism and some other topic, and PR may be an opportunity to meld those together,” she said.
Priest hopes to continue working with his fraternity for some time and then possibly moving into print journalism in the future. According to Priest, once you become a writer, you really are one for life — it’s just a matter of what publication you write for.
Almeera Anwar is a student in the University Of Washington Department Of Communication News Laboratory.
