Yolisa Mkele, senior writer at Tribeca Public Relations
People love to use “jack of all trades, master of none” as a criticism, usually to suggest that someone should specialise rather than spread themselves too thin. There is also a widely circulated longer version of the phrase that adds “oftentimes better than a master of one”. Whether or not this was part of the original saying, the sentiment is useful because it reframes range as a strength rather than a weakness.
In an agency, range is often the job. PR writers move constantly between sectors, subjects, formats and voices, sometimes within the same day.
One morning, you might be writing an opinion piece for a CEO on financial inclusion. That afternoon, you are working on a press release for a motoring launch, and the next day you are writing in the voice of a hospitality brand’s general manager about staff wellbeing. The subject changes, the audience changes and, importantly, the person you are writing for changes too.
Deep expertise in one field is valuable, but so is having a strong foundation across many subjects. It helps when moving from brief to brief and can also create connections that may not be obvious to someone who has spent their career looking at a subject through a single lens.
Spend long enough immersed in one field and you naturally begin to think in its language and conventions. Engineers think like engineers and doctors think like doctors. A good generalist moves between those worlds often enough to recognise the differences while also spotting the golden threads that connect them.
Style is perhaps the most visible part of this versatility. Writing convincingly as a fintech CEO requires a different instinct to writing for a conservation scientist, and neither should sound like a hotel general manager talking about employee wellbeing.
The skill is not in finding one voice and refining it forever. It is in learning how to hear a new voice quickly, understand how that person thinks and speaks, and reproduce it faithfully enough that the writing feels like theirs rather than yours. Every spokesperson has their own rhythm, vocabulary and level of formality, and a good writer learns to pick up those cues.
Knowledge works in much the same way. Over time, a PR writer develops a working fluency across industries, built through briefs, interviews, research and experience.
You may never become a financial adviser, doctor, engineer or automotive expert, but you learn enough to ask the right questions, follow industry shorthand and translate technical information into something a broader audience can understand. It is not expertise in the traditional sense, but something closer to fast, reliable literacy, built one account at a time.
The people side of the job matters just as much. A first-time spokesperson who is nervous about seeing their name attached to an article needs a different approach to a seasoned executive who has done dozens of interviews. Some people give polished answers, while others think aloud and need you to find the story buried in the conversation.
This adaptability matters most when there is pressure and very little runway. A brief lands in a category the team has never worked in before, a new client comes on board with unfamiliar terminology, or a spokesperson needs an article turned around quickly.
What gets the work over the line is not always prior expertise in that sector. It is the ability to get up to speed quickly, identify what matters, understand the person you are writing for and produce something that sounds informed rather than hurried. This is one of the generalist writer’s most useful outputs: speed without sounding rushed.
“Master of none” therefore feels less like a shortcoming in an industry where writers move between clients, sectors, formats and spokespeople every week. In an agency environment, being able to do many things well is often more useful than being exceptional at only one.
The best PR writers are not necessarily the ones who have mastered a single voice or subject. They are the ones who have become very good at listening, learning and adapting, whatever the brief.
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