Unpaid internships offer invaluable experience

Home Opinion Unpaid internships offer invaluable experience

I was ready to head to our longtime friend’s graduation party with my parents and sister around 6 p.m. one Saturday night in June 2012. I had just reached my front door when I felt my phone buzz. It was that irritating, long, slow vibration that signals a call and sends a panic through my text-savvy generation.

I looked down and the screen read “Michael Miller.” He was my boss that summer at the Toledo Free Press, the weekly newspaper where I was an unpaid intern.

I knew he wasn’t calling to congratulate me on a great week’s work or for a casual chat. My suspicions were confirmed when Michael asked me, the lowly intern, to pick up a last-minute assignment. A boy had gone missing in a nearby town, and the Free Press wanted online coverage that evening before the print edition went out the next week.

I hung up the phone and told my parents and sister to go on to the party without me. I trudged upstairs to get on my laptop and begin research.

With the recent legal trouble that publications like Condé Nast have incurred for hiring unpaid interns, many question the justice of allowing young people to work without pay for a company. Instances like my disrupted Saturday night make me want to grab a picket sign and join the ranks of oppressed youth in forcing pay from the likes of Condé Nast.

But a more rational evaluation of my summer work forces a different perspective. Unpaid internships are invaluable for college students, especially journalism students, for whom published clips and connections are the currency of success.

I worked the same amount of hours and wrote about the same number of stories as the full-time staff reporters, with just as much of the glory and responsibility. After three months of work, I had about 50 published clips to my name, including three cover stories. I wrote on things like the hiring of a new zoo director, a Vietnam vet dying of the effects of Agent Orange, and a strip of new artists emerging in the downtown district.

There were nights, like that Saturday in mid-June, that I wanted to quit the job. I hardly thought the late nights of writing and the early mornings of reporting were worth a nonexistent cash flow. I felt like I was being cheated.

Just as I was cursing out my boss and the entire institution of journalism internships in my mind, the aunt of the missing boy answered my call, and suddenly I was snapped back to a harsh reality. As I talked for 10 minutes with this kindly woman about the devastating loss of her nephew, I knew my work was worthwhile. Beyond the selfish addition of a great clip, I knew I was making a difference to this family by creating awareness in the area.

Before I knew it the clock struck 10 p.m. My family walked through our front door as I was sending my story on to Michael for publication on the website.

My breaking news piece did not lead to a discovery of the missing boy; in fact, he was proclaimed dead weeks later. But I was given the opportunity to report on a major story and have it published on a well-respected paper’s website. I was able to work on my reporting in a real-life situation and get a clip that could land me a paid internship or a real job someday.

By the end of the summer I had not earned a dime, but the experience I had gained was priceless. How else was a rising college sophomore with no real employment experience supposed to interview county commissioners, have her piece ripped to shreds by a forceful editor, and see it in print on her own doorstep, if not for unpaid internships? The answer is, there is no way that the struggling Toledo Free Press could have afforded to pay me for my work.

Working at the Free Press was the hardest thing I have ever done, and it was not always easy to give up Saturday nights with friends and family for payless work. But by choosing experience over money and a social life, I invested in my future. For that, I will be repaid in dividends.