CMI Annual Report 2023-2024

CMI Projects
Aspiring Journalists Thrive in
Pittsburgh Media Partnership’s
Robust Internship Program
By Frank Garland
CMI Projects
One of the Pittsburgh Media Partnership’s
primary goals is to show student journalists there
is a realistic path to a substantial and rewarding
career in journalism. To that end, the Partnership
has created a robust internship program that
boasted 13 participants in the summer of 2022
and 11 more in the summer of 2023. The summer
2023 interns were placed at The Allegheny
Front, Gazette 2.0, Mon Valley Independent,
The Northside Chronicle, Pittsburgh City Paper,
Pittsburgh Independent, Pittsburgh Institute
for Nonprofit Journalism, Pittsburgh Jewish
Chronicle, Pittsburgh Magazine and Trib Total
Media.
Interns worked up to 30 hours per week for eight
weeks at their respective outlets. In addition to
getting front-line training opportunities in the
field, interns also met weekly at Point Park’s
Center for Media Innovation, where they received
training and instruction on topics related to
reporting and writing. Topics included how to
effectively search for public records; grammar,
clarity and fact-checking; the importance of
hyper-local news coverage; reviews and criticism;
and interviewing.
In addition, the Partnership expanded its program
to make two internship slots available during
the spring 2023 semester, and plans were in the
works to offer two more internship positions for
the fall 2023 semester.
One of the spring 2023 interns – Abigail Yoder, a
student at Point Park University -- was housed
at the new Pittsburgh Downtown Media Hub,
adjacent to Point Park’s campus. Yoder spent part
of her intern hours contributing to the Pittsburgh
Independent, a web-based publication that bills
itself as “Pittsburgh’s above-ground underground
newspaper.”
In addition to writing several stories for the
Independent, Yoder worked on developing a new
logo and other graphic elements for the site.
Yoder also helped bolster the Partnership’s
social media presence, as she revived a dormant
Twitter account and assisted with Facebook
posts. Perhaps her most important contribution,
however, came in the form of her work on the
Partnership’s new website.
Yoder not only actively added material to the site,
but she also created several training documents
and videos that enabled the Partnership to better
maintain and add to the site. Yoder showed great
initiative in all her endeavors, as did all of the PMP
interns during the past year.
Visit www.pghmediapartnership.com to learn more
Toby Tabachnick, editor of the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, talks about her newspaper’s collaborative reporting project with the
Pittsburgh Union Progress. The two media outlets joined forces to produce more than 80 stories focusing on the trial of a man
charged with multiple counts of murder related to the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. Photo by Andrew Conte
Point Park University students Virginia Garner, Michelangelo Pellis, Erin Yudt and Caitlyn Scott (left to right) worked at
Trib Total Media in Summer 2023. Photo by Andrew Conte
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