Exposure versus compensation

[Tweener]

I didn't realize newspapers still had unpaid internships. It's so classless. It's really a wretched policy to have unpaid internships. Now if the kid gets course credit at the universidy? That is STRETCHING it to sort of, kind of, not really make it OK to have unpaid internships. If the person can get mulltiple hours of course credit it's not AS bad as not paying the student reporter/deskperson. Please, news organizations, do the right thing and get rid of your internships if you don't pay the employees.

My first internship in college was for credit, not pay, and I didn't care for it. Working all summer without pay is really hard to do when you have living expenses, and I still didn't like the fact that the company was getting my work for free. They could simply dangle "college credit" and justify not paying people. My school, in turn, didn't have to do anything to get my money for the credits other than sign the approval. I didn't like that, either.

I guess it was the principal. I later worked for the same company, different paper, out of college and found that the same cheapskate business practices were in place across the board. Not paying interns was indicative of how little the company values those who provide the content that generates millions (yes, millions) for this large organization. Really sad.