Behind the Pitch: The SBS Media Mentorship Program

At SBS Comms, we take deep pride in our focus on earned media and dedicate considerable internal resources to the development of our entire team’s skill set in this area.?

So as we look toward the second half of the year, we’re thrilled to kick off our fourth cohort of the SBS Media Mentorship program! Our Media Mentorship program is an immersive four-month experience required for Account Coordinators and open to all those looking to improve their media chops and build deeper relationships with reporters and outlets.

The four-month program centers on the fundamentals of media—understanding newsrooms and beats, identifying the best reporters and outlets for a story, building relationships, and pitch writing—and aligns with client work so that mentees are honing their skills while delivering client wins.

In advance of Cohort Four, we’re spotlighting some of the great work of past mentees –?check it out below! And if you’re a recent graduate or young professional looking for something like this, we’re hiring!

Alexander Modiano , Media Strategist?

• Alex’s mentorship culminated in an in-person media event he organized for Royal CEO and founder, Justin Blau in NYC. The event was attended by reporters from The Wall Street Journal, Axios, Variety, Fortune, and Forbes, and helped build key relationships.
• “Joining the program is an incredible opportunity to dedicate time in honing your media skills. The best way to strengthen these skills is through firsthand experience and the program presents so many opportunities that may not be available to junior staff on a regular basis.”

Annalisa MacAyeal , Account Coordinator

• As part of the program, mentees reach out to reporters for in-person (where applicable) meetings –?it’s great practice and a reminder that a human connection is something Zoom can’t replace. Annalisa met with a New York Times fellow focused on tech, including crypto and AI, bringing her learnings back to the agency and setting the stage for an ongoing relationship. Her final project also landed several top tier podcast hits for Runway, including this appearance on Danny in the Valley!
• “The media mentorship program helped me build the skills and confidence necessary to lead more media opportunities, share my proactive ideas and think more strategically. Working on my final project made me feel so much more confident in my writing abilities and my coach allowed me to think outside of the box while looking for targets and angles in my pitch. It has been so rewarding to see reporter interest stemming from my final project pitch and I can’t wait to bring the skills I learned across all my accounts.”

Camille Norton , Account Executive

• Camille’s work for the mentorship program centered on a media event for the co-founder of blockchain protocol Tezos at a 2022 Mets game. Armed with private boxes at Citi Field, she secured a stellar list of priority media for our client and cultivated a casual environment.?
• “I learned the importance of digging into reporter backgrounds to build up our credibility when pitching, ultimately giving me a better understanding of how to approach strategic recommendations for targets.”

Hannah Burkey , Account Coordinator

• Hannah’s final project entailed leading proactive outreach, where Cloudflare Co-founder and President Michelle Zatlyn offered tips on best cybersecurity practices for online shoppers, travelers using the internet in public spaces, and both parents and students for the holiday online shopping, travel, and back-to-school seasons. She drafted pitches and conducted press outreach to a variety of consumer-focused reporters on the e-commerce, travel, and education beats. The project taught Hannah about the consumer media landscape and heightened her pitch writing skills.
• “This program built my confidence in my media skills and all around taught me to think critically when building media lists and suggesting exclusive targets. I also loved sharing pitches with my media mentor, as talking through changes and their thought process live has improved my pitch writing skills.”

Jessie Foster Warner , Account Executive?

• For her final project, Jessie dove into generating media awareness for anti-censorship blockchain protocol Arweave. By focusing on the real-world use cases of the protocol in combatting censorship and disinformation campaigns around the world, Jessie upleveled Arweave beyond crypto media to an international audience.?
• “The program helped me become more confident in my ability to think outside the box – now, I’m focused on bringing new and interesting ideas to all the clients I work with.”

Madeline Gile , Account Executive

• Madeline developed a proactive pitch for Flexport that highlights its ability to leverage tech and on-the-ground expertise to help customers during moments of crisis. She identified the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual forecast on hurricane season as a news peg, and offered a Flexport executive to discuss ways to navigate around bad weather. This is helping us place Flexport in front of a new vertical of reporters, and she continues to update the pitch as new forecasts emerge.
• “This program pushed me to think creatively and consider angles tailored to my client teams that might work for a proactive pitch. This was such good practice for going through the media process from start to finish and helped build my confidence in giving recommendations and sharing ideas.”

Molly B. , SBS alum and former Account Coordinator

• Molly’s final project centered on profile pitching around Deel co-founder and CRO Shuo Wang. With a compelling personal story and a rocket ship of a startup, there’s quite a bit to work with – through several iterations of her pitch, Molly identified the most salient points, ultimately landing this founder profile in The Information.
• “I think the program helped me zoom out from a media perspective and think more like a reporter. I find myself asking questions about how to make an angle more compelling or timely, and what missing pieces there might be to make something work. The program also helped me understand media as a long game, see the value in relationship building and importance of using analytical skills to find the hook in a pitch.”

Samantha Bobal , Account Coordinator

• For her final project, Samantha focused on storytelling for mental health startup TARA Mind. Leaning into Mental Health Awareness Month, Samantha broadened the story beyond the tech industry to weave a broader thread on psychedelic-assisted therapy.?
• “Writing pitches used to feel so daunting, but now I find myself looking forward to the creative process and tweaking each pitch to land a story for clients across all accounts.”