The Educated Reporter: What are internships worth?

The Educated Reporter: What are internships worth?

What are internships worth?

by Linda Perlstein

My internships during college and graduate school were a diverse lot. I was paid generous market wages for some (Newsday, Washington Post) and got credit as part of my academic program for others (Foreign Affairs, World Policy Journal, Wall Street Journal Europe). Still others—a theater company, an anatomy lab, a small-town newspaper—were simply ways to explore random interests or keep busy or make a tiny bit of money or none at all. Those in the last category would not have qualified under the Department of Education’s new rules about paying interns, nor would Wesleyan have wanted to give me credit for them. They weren’t worth credit and, frankly, my contributions did not merit much pay. But they were worth it for me.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed had a nice piece yesterday on credit and internships. Yet I would like to read more about casual internships that don’t fall neatly into the credit-or-wage classification. Paying people competitive

FERPA = Find Evidence Redacted, Please Acquiesce.

by Linda Perlstein

Frank LoMonte at the Student Press Law Center is basically a hero to journalists. Lawyers in the D.C. area could really rake it in, but instead Frank spends his time making sure students are allowed to hold institutions accountable. And not as a fancy lawyer in a big firm who does First Amendment pro bono on the side—he works full-time at an underfunded nonprofit where student journalists can get all sorts of help for free.

Frank has an important piece in the Chronicle of Higher Ed this week about the joke the federal government has