Kid writes for Bleacher Report, never gets paid

I work for the federal government and have 21 unpaid interns at my office. In addition to no pay, they also pay their way out here. Flights are over $2k. They're also not guaranteed housing.

But it's a coveted internship and State is already taking applications for the 2015 summer.

 

As someone who has written for B/R in the past, I would like to chime in.

I wouldn’t necessarily agree that writing for free never gets you anything. Sure, it can be frustrating, but it can also certainly pay off.

In my experience, I wrote as an NBA featured columnist for the site for 6-7 months. It wasn’t paid, but the required work load to keep that label—2 articles a week—was nothing that stopped me from being able to earn a paycheck elsewhere. Besides, as a young writer, the exposure was pretty cool. I would get between 10-25K reads per piece—100-300k+ if it was an article that landed on B/R’s front page.

Eventually, after doing some college football work on the side, I was contacted to see if I had interest in taking a paid on-call contract position for college football.

Now, by no means was it enough to support a family on, but I’ll put it this way: It was enough for a guy in his mid-20’s to live comfortably while paying rent in Boston.

So if you ask me, the whole “B/R uses writers” is BS to me. If you show the drive and have the talent, there are several positions within the company for you. And if you don’t…hey, at least you get an outlet to express your love and passion for your respective team.

I can sympathize with some of the frustrations of the original writer in the Deadspin piece, but I think his whole mindset of EXPECTING to land a paid gig could have contributed to his downfall.

 

Unpaid overseas internships (aka "Rich kid vacation.")

 

Every kid should spend a study semester abroad.
The full college experience is incomplete without it.
A hell of a lot more meaningful than fetching donuts for corpulent editors at the big city paper the summer before your junior year.

 

http://www.npr.org/2013/06/13/191365440/unpaid-no-more-interns-win-major-court-battle

I'm not sure how those "interns" in your office are categorized, honestly. Perhaps as volunteers.

 

Non-profits and government agencies are exempt under the "volunteer" guideline. It's shady for government agencies to do this, especially the federal government.

 

This is interesting to me on two levels: One, it's a reason I don't write any more. Places don't pay, even a lot that used to, because there are plenty of people who will do it for free just to have their "byline" out there. It's amazing how many people who contribute to this think they are professional writers or journalists when they haven't gotten paid a dime and have no real shot at a legitimate gig. Two, I think this is something that's happened in sports journalism for a long time even before the web took over.

On the second, I was out of school for a few years with a good deal of experience when I moved to a new city as a result of my wife's profession. I got an in at the local paper freelancing and doing part-time desk work. At the time stringing there actually gave me a decent income. I was hopeful, but not confident that it would lead to something more stable. I eventually got a news editor position and never really worked in sports again. There were so many part timers, mostly college kids or just graduated, in that newsroom that plugged away for hours on end for virtually nothing and just knew they would get on full time soon enough. I'm not sure I ever saw one who did in any capacity while I was there. I'm sure it wasn't an uncommon practice.

 

They're categorized as interns.

Also, note this from the link you quoted:

There is definitely that. In addition to the jobs, which are intense and in every section of my office, the also have sessions with all 21 and regular employees. The sessions are to educate them about working in an embassy, for the government, to cope with the job, etc. Definitely an educational component.

And at least the ones I've taken the time to get to know have heavy school requirements for their internship. It's not a vacation, and although one of them has a daddy who must be pulling strings, they are not extremely well off.

http://careers.state.gov/intern/student-internships

 

Thanks for your perspective. This is the key to me. If you work for free or low wages hoping for something paid down the line, you really need to show you deserve it. I have seen so many people in this business doing the minimum (and mediocre) work then wondering why they aren't being promoted/getting raises. You have to be willing to work for it. I haven't had a ton of jobs, but the good ones I've gotten have come from working part-time or temporary and proving I deserved it. Not to toot my own horn, of course.

 

I did read all the way through it. All 6,984 words. But I did so while hoping I'd get the payoff of something really embarrassing about B/R. Never happened. The guy's honest, but he does admit to the corner-cutting mentality that pervades everything in the business: the notion that working for free for two years should qualify you for a gig at a big-city newspaper right out of college. Just by itself, that hubris/naivete seriously curbs my sympathy.

 

I have no sympathy for a 22 year old who doesn't get paid to write for bleacher report.

I have sympathy for a 41-year old father of with a mortgage whose company shuts down because Bleacher Report ran it out of business by gaming the SEO system and packaging a crappy product and selling it to a stupid public that doesn't know any better.

 

It doesn't bother you that you were making money for a company that wasn't paying you dick?