{"id":4083,"date":"2009-06-12T12:52:30","date_gmt":"2009-06-12T12:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publicityhound.com\/blog\/?p=4083"},"modified":"2025-06-05T16:24:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T16:24:16","slug":"pr-interns-shouldnt-pitch-the-media-on-your-behalf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/marketing\/public-relations\/pr-interns-shouldnt-pitch-the-media-on-your-behalf\/","title":{"rendered":"PR interns shouldn’t pitch the media on your behalf"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"phone-on-the-phone\"Companies that want\u00a0 to hire a\u00a0PR firm, or do their own publicity,\u00a0can find some helpful suggestions in the\u00a0Forbes.com article The Single Greatest Marketing Tool. <\/a><\/p>\n

One tip, however, is just plain wrong.<\/p>\n

The article recommends\u00a0hiring a PR intern from a local college on the cheap, and then using that intern to deal with the press:<\/p>\n

“Mine the local schools for eager interns looking to pad their resumes at rock-bottom rates. The smartest can deal with the press, hunt for sponsorship opportunities (such as local events) and even develop a company blog to attract customers.”<\/p>\n

You can use an intern to look for sponsors,\u00a0help with your blog, write press releases, update web copy and\u00a0call media outlets to verify contact information.\u00a0But\u00a0here are four reasons why you should NEVER let a PR intern pitch\u00a0the media on your company’s behalf:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It sends the wrong message.<\/strong> “We’re too busy and too important to call you ourselves. So we’re putting our cheap, inexperienced intern on it.”
    \n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n
  2. Pitching is an art.<\/strong> Catching a journalist’s attention in fewer than 10 seconds with a compelling\u00a0pitch is incredibly\u00a0difficult, even for experienced PR pros who have been doing it\u00a0for many years.\u00a0Asking a PR intern to call a business reporter and get a placement is\u00a0like asking a medical school student to perform your brain surgery.
    \n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n
  3. Most interns won’t be prepared to answer the media’s questions.<\/strong> Let’s say you have an intern who CAN deliver a great pitch. But the reporter says,\u00a0“I’m not interested in that story, but what can you tell me about the four people you laid off last month in your PR department?” The person in your company who deals with the press must know how to answer questions like that one, or find someone quickly who can.
    \n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n
  4. Many college students have terrible\u00a0phone manners and don’t sound professional. <\/strong>I know because I get calls frequently from PR firms asking me to confirm or update my company’s contact information that appears in media directories.\u00a0I suspect their interns are making the calls because most of them sound bored, as though I’m the 1,587th person they’ve called that day. Or,\u00a0when I start to ask questions, I hear this kind of response: “Well, like,\u00a0my boss asked me to call you and… like… ” When one youngster got the\u00a0information he needed, he ended the\u00a0conversation with “Awesome!”<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    When I hosted the teleseminar series How to Help Your Boss or Client with a Publicity Campaign<\/a>, I explained that the person who pitches story ideas about your business must sound professional, understand how to craft a compelling pitch,\u00a0 answer unexpected questions from journalists, and build relationships with busy reporters and editors.\u00a0Most PR staffs wouldn’t have the time to train an intern to do all that. And by the time the intern learned the necessary skills, it would be time to go back to school.<\/p>\n

    You can assign your interns to many valuable\u00a0projects, like getting your company more involved in social media. But don’t burden them with pitching. It isn’t fair to them, to your company, or to the media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Companies that want\u00a0 to hire a\u00a0PR firm, or do their own publicity,\u00a0can find some helpful suggestions in the\u00a0Forbes.com article The Single Greatest Marketing Tool. One tip, however, is just plain wrong. The article recommends\u00a0hiring a PR intern from a local college on the cheap, and then using that intern to deal with the press: “Mine\u2026 Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","iawp_total_views":2,"wds_primary_category":606,"footnotes":""},"categories":[606],"tags":[29,205],"class_list":{"0":"post-4083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-public-relations","7":"tag-media-relations","8":"tag-pitching","9":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joan Stewart","author_link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/author\/jstewart\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42081,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4083\/revisions\/42081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}