March 15: A simple Google search in his name brings up thousands of results. Bollywood’s only PR guru Dale Bhagwagar who has introduced the maximum PR trends in the public relations industry, has agreed to train journalism students in content writing, through unpaid virtual internships from his PR agency Dale Bhagwagar Media Group.
Having spent 11 years in journalism, Dale Bhagwagar shifted to public relations 25 years ago. Since the last two decades, the legendary PR expert has been training students of mass communication through PR internships, PR orientation workshops and guest lectures. A lot of his students now work in various media houses and PR agencies across India. He has also been a guide to twenty PhD students for their thesis and dissertations.
Work-from-home journalism internships in content writing
Apart from his experience and expertise in media, Dale is known for his journalistic astuteness and PR ethics. After 36 years of catering to the news industry, the media maven’s PR agency Dale Bhagwagar Media Group has agreed to accept unpaid virtual journalism internships in content writing for select students across media. Announcing this development, JournalismInternship.in explains about how the PR firm has opened its doors to help a wider set of media students. Dale Bhagwagar Media Group’s ‘Unpaid Virtual Internships in Content Writing’ are based on work-from-home projects, assigned mainly to students studying journalism, content writing and/or public relations.
Why content writing
Without understanding how to write great content, one can never be a great journalist or a great PR. Humans have moved from the Stone Age to the Labour Age, Industrial Age and then the Information Age — now speedily heading into the Communication Age.
With the right direction and right guidance in writing and communication skills and its proper processes, one can improve on content writing skills from a news media point of view. Without perfecting this, journalism and PR learning remains incomplete in an era where content is king.
The Virtual Internships have an entry barrier on who the PR agency chooses to train. There is an entry test all applicants must take. Only if the agency is satisfied with the entry test response, will the applicants be accepted for the two-month virtual journalism internship in content writing.
The entry test involves content generation of two news articles on topics commissioned by the agency. The articles are scrutinized for writing quality, news value, expressiveness, formation of sentences, grammar, copy editing and meeting the deadlines of article submission. If the two news articles meet the agency’s expectations, it issues an offer note to the applicant to join as a Virtual Intern.
The period of the internship is two months, which is essential for understanding content strategy, journalistic styles and ethics, spin techniques, methods of news writing, formation of content, news angles and news writing formats.
Intern articles published online
As a Virtual Intern, the applicant is expected to stay in touch over the phone and on WhatsApp each day for two months and generate two news articles everyday for 60 days.
In case the daily articles prepared by the Intern meet the journalistic standards of national news websites, the PR firm speaks to select websites and gets some of them published. These could be extremely beneficial as reference links for the Intern, when seeking a job in mass media professions such as journalism, content writing or PR in future.
Digital Certificate and Letter of Appreciation
On successful completion of the Virtual Internship, students get a Digital Certificate and Letter of Appreciation from Dale Bhagwagar Media Group.
Who is Dale Bhagwagar?
For the uninitiated, Dale Bhagwagar is a leading celebrity publicist in India with 36 years of experience in the news media industry — 11 years in journalism, followed by 25 years of expertise in PR. As a journalist, he has written for national publications like The Indian Express, The Asian Age, DNA, Screen, Cine Blitz, Showtime, Moviemag International and the iconic Blitz tabloid, among others.
As a publicist and thought leader, he has been quoted in almost every top media in India. He is also the only Indian publicist who has been quoted in top best international media such as BBC, Sky News (UK), CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post (US), The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), International Herald Tribune (France) and Pravda (Russia).
He heads the PR agency Dale Bhagwagar Media Group in Mumbai which has handled the publicity for over 300 Bollywood personalities, 30 movies and 20 Bigg Boss contestants. Its activities bear his personal touch and stamp. The agency has been at the forefront of the entertainment PR brigade for more than two decades.