SPRING INTERN TIANA EICHER. | PHOTO COURTESY OF TIANA EICHER

I’d like to give a shoutout to the many interns who come through our office every year to learn the important skills of journalism.

Despite all the turmoil and criticism hitting media outlets from all directions these days, it’s heartening to see young people still interested in pursuing this field. In our office, they help bolster the content on our daily website while learning a range of reporting and writing skills — in both long-form and quick-turnaround stories. It’s very much a symbiotic relationship.

I’ve worked directly with interns for more than 20 years, and the young writers of today come with more polished skills and confidence than those in the past.

But the job can indeed be a sink-or-swim experience. A new intern is given a story about an institution or subject they know little or nothing about and quickly have to get background, figure out questions to ask, gather the information, organize it and craft a well-written story — quickly — that (hopefully) allows their creativity to shine. And it has to be accurate.

This summer we have three interns. We sent Kathleen Gianni from George Washington University out on her second day to cover an important Heinz History Center press conference, which she had to write up for the website the same day. We also asked her to take photos at the scene. Natalie Rodriguez from Duquesne University threw together a breaking story about a new TV series filming here.

We also get fresh ideas from our interns. Naomi Girson, also from Duquesne and drawing from her experience as a swim instructor for two years, suggested writing about the importance of children (and adults) learning how to swim; the incidences of drowning are actually rising after years of decline. So she wrote a timely news-you-can-use piece as we were heading into summer.

It’s always thrilling to see former interns land jobs in their chosen fields. I particularly remember Alexandra “Ally” Ross, a University of Pittsburgh student who interned here in 2022, because she came up with a lot of her own ideas. In one, she envisioned what a Pittsburgh-themed Wordle game would look like, noting that some of our most popular words — jagoff and yinzer — had too many letters to use in the game. After she graduated, she went on to work at CNN as an associate producer and, earlier this summer, announced she had landed a job as a news reporter at WFMJ-TV in Youngstown, Ohio.

Other interns I have worked with have gotten jobs at The New York Times, The Washington Post and many local publications — or have gone on to law school, into politics or to pursue other fields. We so appreciate their hard work and contributions but also love having a role in their future success.