Let your PR interns be PRs

Our interns at Weidert Group recently came across a few articles that focus on the great intern debate: to let them pitch or not to let them pitch. They include thoughts from The Publicity Hound and Journalistics and express good points about how pitching is an art best left for seasoned PR pros and that interns may not know as much about clients and won’t be able to answer questions intelligently, etc.

Although these are valid points, a good PR manager can give experience without sacrificing the reputation of their agency or company. Teaching young PR interns the art of a media pitch can be scary to hand-off, but it is the responsibility of PR managers to do it right.

Why? We would be doing our profession a disservice if we denied our interns access to this valuable professional skill they will need when they enter a full-time PR position. There are already enough stories from journalists who’ve had bad experiences with PRs – it’s the job of experienced PR people to change that stigma in our industry. In fact, to support my thoughts, I reached out to a few media friends of my own asking if they would be offended by a pitch from an intern. Here’s a collection of my ideas and theirs on how PR pros can give interns media relations experience without sacrificing the reputation of their agency:

Be selective. Hold a professional interview process and hire interns that are in their last year of college in a PR program, or have already graduated with a PR degree. These students will have the fundamentals of public relations, be mature enough to handle themselves on a phone call with a reporter, and want to impress you so you’ll hire them when they graduate.

Prepare them. When hiring interns into an agency setting, make them spend the first week getting to know your clients. You can also send them a list of clients with project information and links to their web sites before they begin their internship.

Start with pitch writing. Before your interns pick up the phone, get them prepared by writing e-mail pitches for your clients. They get the experience of putting a pitch together, but the information is still sent to media contacts from you.

Be strategic. PR managers should be strategic in finding a way to teach this lesson to interns without sacrificing your relationship with a Wall Street Journal editor. Start small by having them work on pro bono PR work or develop a relationship with a small trade publication editor. These placements are simple enough for an intern to handle, but are still important to the client, giving the intern real-life experience about what it’s like to please a reporter and a client.

Ask for help. One writer I contacted about this subject suggested that PR pros incorporate the writer into the teaching process by warning them an intern at your company will be contacting them with a story idea. After the intern contacts them, ask for feedback on if their media relations skills would land a story for your client.

Use an integrated media relations effort. Have the intern research the client, create a media list, develop a media alert about an upcoming local event, distribute the release, and get a lesson how to follow-up with media contacts. Even if they don’t get a placement, it’s great content to put in a portfolio and great experience overcoming the nerves of calling media.

So, if you’re a PR manager, consider these tips to help your interns get exposure to the media while staying in control of your agency reputation with the media. If you’re a PR intern without contact with media, send this on to your boss. It’s also your job not to settle for an internship that doesn’t give you the experience you need.