Crack Down on Bad Internships, But Keep the Good Ones

by Katie Peoples

The recent court rulings in favor of the Black Swan and Conde Nast interns brings up conflicting feelings for me.

Like a lot of college graduates — particularly one in a creative field — I had an internship my first summer out of college for a local magazine. At the time, I knew that some internships were paid and some were not. I was prepared to work for free for three months for this magazine as a stepping stone to something bigger. What I didn’t realize as an intern was just how much that free work would cost me.

For three months, I worked part time at a restaurant in San Francisco for $10 per hour, for about 15 hours a week as a hostess. I lived with my sister rent-free in a suburb in the East Bay so I had to commute every day to San Francisco for my 20-hour-a-week internship and part-time job. In the span of three months, I overdrew my account twice, changed jobs, and borrowed a bunch of money from my sister to stay afloat.

But I did all this in hopes of getting valuable training and contacts. I saw from previous email addresses that many interns at this magazine went on to become contributors, and sometimes, even editors. But it was a small place, and I had no idea if a full-time editorial position would open up just as I was finishing my final month as an intern.

I got hired pretty quickly and moved my way up. Pretty soon I was in charge of the intern pool and I started feeling a bit uncomfortable at times. Actually looking up the definition of “intern” under the Department of Labor made me extra vigilant about how I ran the operation: No overtime. No coffee runs. No excessive amounts of paper pushing. And assignments, assignments, assignments. I gave direct feedback when I had time between proofreading other features. I gave interns interviews to do, articles to write, PR people to contact, articles to proofread (along with training on proofreading).

Once, I passed on a chance to interview Lady Gaga (before she was famous), and assigned it to one of my interns. It was a top story on our website for weeks. Our interns saw an entire production cycle of an issue and reaped the benefits of grateful editors willing to help them along with their careers. Four were later hired in various positions from photo editor to copyeditor to web editor.

Having been on both sides of interning, it’s hard for me to figure out what these court rulings mean. There are some legit internships out there with job training. If companies have to pay interns, then most companies (especially in publishing) will simply cut their programs. If companies confine internships to university students only, they leave out people who are trying to break into industries or people too poor to attend university but have a desire to work in a business like journalism.

Obviously, it’s time that people cracked down on the abuse of interns. But not all internships are useless wastes of time. And not all companies with internships are evil jerks preying on innocent post-grad kids.

Katie Peoples lives in San Diego and is an ESL teacher by day, writer by night.

Support The Billfold

The Billfold continues to exist thanks to support from our readers. Help us continue to do our work by making a monthly pledge on Patreon or a one-time-only contribution through PayPal.