Every year, the Public Relations Student Society of America, or PRSSA, hosts the national Bateman Case Study Competition, challenging students to create a public relations campaign for a given brand.
This year, six LSU seniors studying public relations were tasked with developing a campaign for ACCESS Newswire, an educational resource that gives college students and educators free access to press releases.
The team includes account executive Isabella Fuscaldo, social media director Lyla McGuire, event director Emily Poirrier, media relations director Emma Torres, research director Mary-Alice Talbot and creative director Amaris Birmingham. The students came together as part of their capstone project.
“The rest of our class is doing basically the same thing, just on a little bit longer of a ,” said Mary-Alice Talbot. “The Bateman team is doing just a little bit faster implementation and stuff since we have to have our book in by the middle of March.”
Talbot is the team’s research director, meaning that she was responsible for gathering research on ACCESS Newswire, creating surveys and distributing consent forms before the Bateman team even officially began meeting.
“I did a lot of my — a big chunk of my work before we started meeting,” Talbot said, “just getting research on what [ACCESS Newswire] is, how they operate, how it’s better or worse than other press release distribution services like it and then also stuff about the other competitors.”
The team had its first meeting in January after most of the research had been completed, but the students still had a lot of work ahead of them.
A key aspect of the campaign is the team’s social media initiative. The group started posting on Instagram on Feb. 2 and has since cultivated a distinct branding — a bold color palette of pink and navy blue and a heart motif that reflects the campaign’s slogan, “With love, ACCESS Newswire.”
This theme of love is not just a line in the campaign’s Instagram bio, but also a common thread connecting each promotional event and driving the group’s messaging to students and faculty.
Emily Poirrier is the Bateman team’s event director. Her job was to coordinate the group’s two major events: Love on the Wire and Get Wired with ACCESS Newswire.
The first event, Love on the Wire, was held in Free Speech Alley, and the goal was to drive students’ awareness of and engagement with ACCESS Newswire. The team also partnered with Andy’s Frozen Custard, Red Bull and Celsius, handing out free treats and beverages to students who stopped to hear more about the client and followed the Instagram.
Their second event focused on the other half of the team’s target audience. Get Wired with ACCESS Newswire was an informational event for faculty and graduate students to learn about the different applications of the press release resource. By showing educators how to use ACCESS, Poirrier and her teammates hoped that students would then be exposed to the resource in the classroom and learn to apply it in their schoolwork and professional work later on.
“The whole idea is to get students interested in using it,” Poirrier said, “so that whenever they get into the workforce, then they’ll know a little bit about it and can maybe implement it at wherever they find a job.”
In addition to these events, the Bateman team had to put together a handbook outlining their campaign proposal for ACCESS Newswire, including a situational analysis, a research overview, a list of goals and the strategies the team would implement to achieve these objectives.
The team finds out this week if they are selected as one of the three finalists in the competition. If selected, the LSU Bateman team will present its campaign to the national PRSSA board and ACCESS Newswire representatives on May 7.
For Emma Torres, the team’s media relations director, the most challenging part of the process has been balancing working on the campaign with her other responsibilities.
Torres is currently taking 18 credit hours of coursework this semester on top of an internship and a resident assistant position. Still, her commitment to the Bateman team has been a worthwhile experience.
“Bateman is just so critical to my future as a professional that as busy as it has been, I’m enjoying it so much,” Torres said, “and it’s giving me so much experience to put on my resume and show future employers what I’ve been working on.”
For every student on the team, participating in the 2026 Bateman Case Study Competition has been a long — and often difficult — process, but each member has gained valuable PR experience working with a real-world client.
No matter if the team is selected as a finalist, Torres is grateful for the unique opportunity Bateman gave her to build friendships with her teammates and form connections with people in her industry.
“The community that you build up by doing Bateman is just so special,” Torres said.
Editor’s note: Bateman team member Lyla McGuire is also a Reveille staff member.
