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Non-paid internships: slavery?

Many journalists I know have had or have un-paid internships.
A story floating around the blogosphere says internships that do not pay or give school credit are the same as slavery.
Read the story by the SF Weekly here.
Read some reactions to that story here and here.

My reaction? If it weren't for my unpaid internship in college I would not be where I am today - city hall reporter for a community newspaper of the Orange County Register.
In college, a buddy asked me if I wanted to help out at his (said buddy was the editor) newspaper - the Seal Beach Sun. The weekly tabloid, he assured, would pay me and I could work whatever hours I wished.
Of course the money didn't pan out, but I did work whatever hours I could. At the newspaper office two blocks from the beach, I wrote cop logs, covered council meetings, copy edited the newspaper, took and edited photos, designed the newspaper, answered phones and made the coffee.
It was my time at this community newspaper and at my school newspaper that I really started to learn journalism. Not in the classroom.
Sure, a professional internship arranged through my school or a newspaper would have paid or given me school credit. But, my time at this small newspaper allowed me to learn the basics of city government reporting from a wonderful mentor, Brian Brannon,  - while all the time I could stroll in wearing jeans, flip-flops and a tank top.

Please post your experiences, or lack therof, with unpaid internships.
Published Friday, March 02, 2007 9:12 PM by SonyaSmith
Filed Under: ,

Comments

# re: Non-paid internships: slavery?

Saturday, March 03, 2007 7:00 PM by GenePark
I agree with you that internships are a valuable notch in anyone's belt — I have three. One of them paid me a measly $1 an hour for 200 hours of work, or five weeks of working 9 to 6.

However the blogger in response to the issue brings up an interesting point: How are less-priveleged budding journalists expected to survive? I was fortunate that I had mommy and daddy supporting me while I was going to high school and college.

You basically need to expect to either be in the hole or have some other source of income to have an internship. Usually the only people who can afford to do so are people still in school. Maybe it's one way to bring in younger and younger interns, thus future employees?

I know even though I was being supported by my parents, I was still having a rough time wth $1 an hour. I drove out to work every morning for an hour to an hour and a half, and drove back home the same route. And that was when gas prices were already starting to creep near $3 a gallon.

# re: Non-paid internships: slavery?

Friday, March 09, 2007 12:10 AM by Dale Denwalt II
Last year, I took a paid internship in Oklahoma City covering the State Legislature. I couldn't have taken it without pay.

Moving three hours away from home for four months cost so much that I had to carefully use the $6 an hour I got for my reporting. It really helped, too, that I worked full time.

Paid internships are important for j-students who can't afford to move somewhere else or quit a job to be an intern. I'd love to get an internship in DC, New York or another large market, but many of the positions I find are unpaid. So it doesn't matter whether I get the internship...the costs make taking it impossible.

Getting paid for intern reporting is good for students who don't go to a large school in a large town. If I were in OKC or Tulsa, I could easily find a non-paying internship. In Tahlequah, I have one choice: the local daily (who probably couldn't afford to pay me, anyway).

My dream internship would be working for Roll Call on Capitol Hill. It's like what I did in OKC, but with the big dogs. Unfortunately, they don't pay interns, and moving to Washington DC then is out of the question. I know that with dwindling profits in print and budget reallocation to other sectors of the business, publishers often can't pay interns. They might say the experience is pay enough. I say that I don't work for free.

# re: Non-paid internships: slavery?

Sunday, April 08, 2007 8:48 PM by Jennifer Frehn
Before getting hired full-time, I held three internships--two with stipends and one paid.

The problem with non-paid internships is that for tax purposes, companies have to show that you are getting something in return for working there. Most companies would prefer students receive course credit for the internship. This way, they don't have to pay you. However, this can sometimes mean students are paying to work. Universities do not give you free units. In my case, I would have had to pay about $350 to get class credit for my summer internships. Instead I convinced the newspaper and magazine (I completed two internships in one summer, in addition to working part-time and working at my school's student newspaper) to provide a small stipend. Even something as small as $50 looks better on their records than saying you are working for nothing. And most publications can afford $50.

Does this still resemble slave labor? Possibly. But students should remember that internships don't have to be full-time. Even one or two days a week in a semester can increase your experience tremendously.

# re: Non-paid internships: slavery?

Friday, April 13, 2007 10:38 AM by The Editorialiste
To Sonya and the commenters,

Thanks for posting this and your experiences. It's interesting to see everyone's history with internships and how it panned out. And many of you make great points: Yes, it's a tax thing; yes, a two-day a week internship can be valuable. But when you're in New York, for example, those two days of work make the difference in making rent or not. Really!

I encourage you to keep up the discussion, and thanks for reading!

The Editorialiste.
http://editorialiste.blogspot.com/
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