Happy Monday fellow PR Newbies! I am so excited that today there is a guest blogger ! Meet Steven from @comminternships, without further ado, here we go:
My name is Steven Chappell, and I have been a professional journalist, college media adviser and journalism educator for more than 25 years. During that time, I have watched the field of mass communication evolve at an ever-increasing pace, and as an early adopter of new media technologies, I am always looking to the next big thing to teach my students. Twitter has become one of those next big things. I knew there had to be a way to use Twitter as an aggregator to inform students about available internships. As a result, @comminternships was born.
Steven Chappell is a 25-year media veteran, having worked as a professional journalist, college media adviser, professional consultant and social media expert. He’s also a Grammar-Nazi (@thegrammarnazi in addition to @comminternships), so be careful what you email him. Grammar mistakes are forgiven when accompanied by his favorite food, a bacon-wrapped habanero pepper stuffed with cream cheese cooked on the grill.
The feed launched in the fall of 2010 with a focus just on local internships for my students in Iowa. However, shortly after the feed launched, students I taught in other states began asking if there were internships for them I could list. By mid-spring of 2011, I had begun aggregating about 25 Twitter feeds that regularly tweet jobs and internships in communications fields, and by the start of 2012, that number had grown to more than 100 feeds.
As the feed has grown, I have kept the focus primarily on entry-level jobs and internships for students in journalism and public relations, but have expanded it to include jobs in design, marketing, advertising, and, of course, social media. Right now, the hashtags affiliated with the feed are #internship, #jourintern (for journalism internships), #printern (for public relations internships), #socialmediaintern, #designintern, #advertisingintern, #entryleveljournalism, #entrylevelpr, #entrylevelsm, #entryleveldesign and #entrylevelads (for entry level jobs requiring three years or fewer of experience). I always check the link for each job before tweeting the internship, and I try to weed out internships that are unpaid slave jobs, and limit them to jobs that I feel will provide the intern relevant experience. I also usually modify the tweet to include the employer and location of the job or internship, so students not interested in relocating can skip over those internships.
This blog will focus primarily on public relations jobs and internships, but may occasionally venture out into other fields as well, as I strongly believe all communicators should have a multimedia focus. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for future topics, don’t hesitate to contact me through the feed @comminternships or via e-mail: steven@comminternships.com.
Steven Chappell is a 25-year media veteran, having worked as a professional journalist, college media adviser, professional consultant and social media expert. He’s also a Grammar-Nazi (@thegrammarnazi in addition to @comminternships), so be careful what you email him. Grammar mistakes are forgiven when accompanied by his favorite food, a bacon-wrapped habanero pepper stuffed with cream cheese cooked on the grill.
Jess AsPRing 