NASW Summer Virtual Mentoring Program, COVID-19, Edition --- Virtual Pitching Session
In this educational pitching session, student volunteers will present 90-second story pitches to a panel of editors, in front of the whole group, and receive tailored feedback about how and whether the story might fit at various publications. The feedback given is meant to be constructive and useful for all students present.
The editor panel includes:
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Corinna Wu, Senior Editor, Chemical & Engineering News
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Sarah Lewin Frasier, Assistant News Editor, Scientific American
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Ashley Smart, Associate Editor, Undark Magazine
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David Malakoff, Deputy News Editor, Science
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Megan Thielking, News Editor, STAT News
NOTE that the editors on the panel will not be considering pitches for their own publications. We will not record the pitching session, and, out of professional respect for each other, all attendees are asked and expected to keep other participants' ideas and pitches confidential.
Mentors are asked to nominate students to present their pitches, by Wednesday, June 10, with an email to mentor@nasw.org. Students who would like to volunteer should first discuss with their mentors, and the mentor will make the decision about whether to submit a nomination.
Students should write down their pitch and practice saying it aloud ahead of time to ensure that it falls under 90 second limit.
Since the first part of Friday's meeting will be for students to present and listen to feedback on pitches, we won't ask mentors to sit through that portion. Mentors are invited to join at 1:30 p.m. Eastern, in time for the one-on-one sessions with their mentees. Mentors who would like to join at 1 p.m. and listen in on the pitching and offer any helpful resources via the chat window are welcome to do so.
Here are some pitching resources suggested by the NASW Education Committee:
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A series of succinct points, perfectly applicable to this assignment compiled by international editors for SciDevNet.
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Most publications to solicit freelance content have freelancer guidelines available online. For instance:
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Browse 200+ successful pitches in The Open Notebook's Pitch Database
Please send questions to the NASW Education Committee at mentor@nasw.org.
