Pitch Day: UNC Hussman students help local organizations innovate, thrive
By Beth Hatcher
Students in MEJO 463: Creating Tomorrow’s News Products recently used their collective brain power to pitch innovative news ideas at Pitch Day, the annual event that culminates the course taught by Teaching Associate Professor Kate Sheppard.
Pitch Day operated a bit differently this year. Instead of pitching entirely new products, students brainstormed ways to enhance existing or planned ventures for four local organizations.
Remote working conditions partly prompted the change, but Sheppard said she also wanted to mirror the conditions many students will face as they head into newsrooms.
“The class focused more on intrapreneurship than entrepreneurship this year. “These are the kinds of skills that students can take into the newsroom,” Sheppard said. “The news industry is in a constant state of change. Ultimately, we all have to be problem solvers.”
During Pitch Day, students pitched solutions for:
• The Assembly, a new statewide digital magazine.
• A new podcast from the UNC Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP).
• The Local Reporter, an online-only news site covering Orange County, North Carolina.
• A new collaboration between the investigative journalism radio show Reveal and “MEJO 553: Advanced Reporting” that funnels student investigative work to local news outlets.
The Assembly
Student team: Abigail Baucom ’22, Andrea Kelley ’21, Lauren Ledford ’22, Paige Masten ’21
The Assembly is a new, statewide digital magazine focusing on long-form narrative journalism, and short-form ideas pieces that launched in February 2021. Students pitched ideas about how the magazine could distribute content, drive earned media and build subscribers.
Students advised creating more short-form content and consistent engagement across all The Assembly’s social media platforms — Twitter, Instagram and Facebook — which would lead to free advertising and better SEO.
Click on the image below to see the group’s full set of suggestions in their presentation.
“I think the students had some great ideas. Their ideas around social media engagement were spot on,” said Kyle Villemain, The Assembly’s founder and editor, who also appreciated the team’s input about increasing content. “We are lucky to have such a strong journalism school in our backyard and Pitch Day is an example of how that partnership can be a big win-win.”
Kelley appreciates how the exercise pushed students to hone public speaking and professional pitching skills. “It was also a great way for us to showcase the work and research we've been doing all semester,” she said. “It was rewarding to see it all come together and realize that we've come up with something that will make a real difference for someone and that will help boost the success of a local publication.”
CITAP
Student team: Sofia Alba ’22, Montia Daniels ’22, Jeremiah Holloway ’22 and Daniel Myrick ’22
Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the center combines faculty from UNC Hussman, the UNC School of Information and Library Science and the Department of Communication. CITAP is dedicated to researching, understanding and responding to the growing impact of the internet, social media and other forms of digital information sharing. CITAP asked students for ideas on measuring the impact of a podcast they plan to launch focused on understanding the intersection of technology and politics, featuring the center’s chief investigators.
The students gave tips on engaging listeners through social media, such as sending out three to five unique tweets a day from the main CITAP Twitter account, as well as retweeting from the accounts of the center’s staff and faculty. Students also gave marketing suggestions like creating a strong logo and name for the podcast and building a public relations kit about the podcast.
Click on the image below to see the group’s full set of suggestions in their presentation.
Kathryn Peters, CITAP’s executive director, praised the students’ work.
“At CITAP, we knew that a podcast could help new audiences understand our research and make our expertise accessible to journalists, policymakers, technologists, students and others outside of academia. We also knew how much we didn’t know about podcasting,” she said. “The students were an exciting source of support and expertise able to help us think through some of the big planning questions, and it’s been fun learning alongside them.”
“Sharing our pitch in front of professors in the journalism school also was a great chance to show our ability to deliver a strong presentation when selling a product,” Holloway said. “A strong piece of feedback we received was making sure CITAP has a strong alternative to a podcast if the market fails.”
The Local Reporter
Student team: Audrey McCamy-Miller ’21, Maggie Caudle ’22, Lauren Mobley ’22, Ellen Hardison ’22 and Jack Rhoden ’22
The online-only news site launched 15 months ago to cover the greater Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County area. Students were asked to help the news site figure out how to increase brand awareness and convert readers into paying subscribers.
Students provided marketing tips such as distributing Local Reporter stickers to local businesses, increasing social media engagement and having Local Reporter staff give guest lectures in the community. Students also advised employing UNC Hussman interns for extra work power.
Click on the image below to see the group’s full set of suggestions in their presentation.
“We launched The Local Reporter at probably the worst possible time — right before the beginning of the pandemic. We thus were unable to do many of the in-person efforts that would have gotten us better known. So, one of the main challenges we presented to the students was how to increase our social media presence,” said Neil Offen, one of the site’s founders. “The pitch was insightful, well-researched and very useful. We have already begun implementing some of the ideas they suggested and will be trying to figure out how to implement several more.”
“It was helpful to hear our clients respond with the challenges they may have implementing our proposals, so that we are able to work those out before the end of the semester,” Caudle said. “It was also great to hear that we’ve been on the same page and that our solutions will be helpful!”
Reveal/ MEJO 553
Student team: Neftali Cabrales ’21, Chris Ocana ’22, Jadah Smith ’22, David Richman ’22 and Daniela Rodriguez ’22
A partnership between Assistant Professor Erin Siegal McIntyre’s “MEJO 553: Advanced Reporting” course and Reveal, a public radio show and podcast from the Center for Investigative Reporting, seeks to design and execute a collaborative reporting and publishing process providing student-written investigative news to local new outlets. McIntyre asked Sheppard’s “MEJO 463” students for their thoughts on enhancing the project’s design and process.
They advised creating a Collaborative Hussman Pitching pipeline, an intentional curriculum that helps students get works published, modeled after the school’s Media Hub and the University of Maryland’s Nowhere to Go project.
See the group’s full set of suggestions in their presentation.
Click on the image below to see the group’s full set of suggestions in their presentation.
“I think being put in the position to apply our research to a huge audience has been a huge benefit of Pitch Day. It forced our group to consolidate our research into a much more streamlined format,” Ocana said. “It really helped us get a handle on what we have and what we need to work on.”
“One goal has always been to see if Reveal can publish select student work, but at the same time, we know that’s a pretty high bar. That’s why we also want to make sure we can offer work by our talented students to local outlets for publication,” McIntyre said. “The team had an insightful pitch. I was impressed by their diligence, enthusiasm and care.”