Arts Group

Two bits of national press this week. Firstly, the BBC featured the issue of parliamentary internships on BBC Radio Five live and simultaneously on the BBC website. And today the Guardian have included an interview with my colleague Rosy in the Work section. Interestingly the journalist who wrote the article, Huma Qureshi, is an ex-intern herself, and got her job at the Guardian/Observer after a stint of unpaid work! The message is clear: it can happen!

I almost didn’t post this up. It’s just that dull. The trouble is the Guardian is not going to publish a desensitized account of a journalism internship. The fact that you have begged for months to get a place, only to realise it probably wont get you anywhere in the long run. Almost as soon as I graduated I got a month at a national– thinking this was my ticket to any number of entry-level jobs. What an idiot.

The most helpful hacks – rather than just rebuffing my eagerness – told me to do an expensive post-grad course and then concentrate on getting more unpaid work. Somehow I didn’t expect it to be that hard. Uni career services should really spend more time explaining how tough reality is. Anyway, rant over. Here is the Guardian's diary of an intern…

Monday  
A group of university students came round for a tour this afternoon. There seemed to be quite a few of them, which I'm a bit mystified at. With so few opportunities available in journalism I've no idea why so many people are choosing to study the subject. Still, I'm in the same boat, I suppose so perhaps someone could've warned me of the dangers of entering such an industry.

Enjoyed today very much though, I'm getting into a routine of mapping out my week to make sure that everything goes smoothly. I've learnt that being organised is a massive part of the job.

Tuesday 
Ricky's relayed a few tales to me about incidents which happened before I started at the paper. When I first arrived I maybe didn't understand why he was so unhappy with other members of staff and their embracing (or lack of) the digital side of things but I am beginning to see things differently.

He mentioned when he conducted an interview which went wrong not long after he joined the company, someone a bit more senior than him went straight to the editor to tell him, rather than having a quiet word about what happened, which doesn't seem very fair.

It's not as if everyone is constantly sniping or at each others' throats but there is a definite reticence from some people to get more involved. Certain departments just seem to 'stick to their own' as it were. How does this benefit the paper and website? It only keeps people divided and produces a poorer product.

Wednesday
 With those revelations coming out yesterday, I've definitely been a bit more wary about other people I'm in contact with in the office.

However, a couple of the sports guys have been over to discuss a few things and certainly made me feel a bit more comfortable when I work with them. Not sure at this stage if that's because I get on so well with the editor and he's persuading them to help more with the podcast and web side of things. I'll just run with it for now, I'm in no position to be suspicious of how this breakthrough has come my way.

Thursday  
Did the first round of videos for a local charity awards night which will be held next month. The paper is the principle sponsor so it's a fairly important job and something I need to get right. The first two nominees I met were fantastic and I think I'll enjoy doing this as long as I keep progressing with the technical side of things.

In trying to be helpful when a reporter was attempting to get into Ricky's computer (he's had the day off), he immediately turned away when I enquired if I could be of assistance. The guy didn't even look at me and just mumbled something. He's been a bit frosty during my whole internship, and that put the stamp on it when he couldn't even be civil to me.

As an intern on a national newspaper I often have to pinch myself when that magical beep allows me through the security gates every morning, just being in the building is enough to make the experience worthwhile most of the time. Despite this though, it is often very tough. When the initial buzz of being party to an industry you've spent so long daydreaming about wears off, the reality of working long hours for no money can be extremely difficult – both mentally and physically.

One of the hardest parts of being an intern with no salary is getting up early and getting home late, spending long hours completing tasks which are essential to the running of your section all the while knowing that you're not being paid for your efforts – a knowledge that leaves me feeling demoralised and demotivated at the end of a long week. Although my editor is supportive and often allows me opportunities to write and gather content for the section, when the office gets busy lines get easily blurred and it becomes very easy for employers to forget an intern is there to gain experience, not make cups of tea and deliver scripts around the building. What becomes so ultimately heart-breaking about the entire intern experience is the knowledge that when my time is up here, i'll be just the latest in a long line of interns who've gone before me, despite how much I impress.

Internships are a balancing act

Which leads me to the-near impossible balancing act that interns know only too well -the fine line between appearing enthusiastic, dedicated and available and being dubbed the irritating, over-cheerful suck up, the latter of which ought to be avoided at all costs. Even after you master the art of making an impression while staying out of the way, there remains the simple fact that no matter how hard you try, chances of getting a job are pretty much non-existent, as every editor/reporter/cafe attendant will tell you.

 Like many of our generation, I have taken the route of an internship with a Member of Parliament. There are some interesting responsibilities, press releases, case work etc. Then there are the usual pitfalls; the lack of direction in the office mainly. One of the key problems for interns is that those directly responsible for them often forget that the principle reason for you being there is to increase your skills. Often the lines are blurred between Bob, the unpaid intern who is here for the benefit of his career, learning essential skills for public affairs, and Bob, the office lackey who is here (almost literally) to sweep up after us. To a negligent supervisor, recently graduated university students often do seem to be there to do unpaid grunt work. When you're on the receiving end of it, it is practically sickening.

 It can leave you with a feeling of intense resentment towards the world of public affairs and media, which thrives on this practise and often ostracises outsiders.

 Whilst undertaking this internship I have been reading The Triumph of the Political Class by Peter Oborne. I don’t think I could have picked a worse book to cement these feelings of bitterness.

 ”As they professionalized and grew more homogenous the Political and Media Classes began to restrict membership to the middle classes, and increasingly to each other's sons and daughters. This was in large part because of the special pay structure of the Media/Political Class. Though stars in both arenas were capable of making very large sums of money indeed, new graduates are impoverished. A young researcher reporting to an MP, or a television producer starting out, are both extremely poorly paid. They are, however, expected to work in Central London, which is prohibitively expensive and only possible with subsidy from well heeled parents”

 The whole of the public affairs and media domain is made possible by backhanders, press leaks, favourable stories and a slimy mutability between actors serving themselves and their friends. Even my university's careers page recommends the practise of ‘networking' in order to progress in this arena. The story goes that Peter Mandelson got his big break in the world of politics by offering a cup of tea to a senior Labour figure who missed his train. Upon the Minister seeing Mandelsons' poster of him on his bedroom wall, the young prince of darkness's fate was sealed. Am I expected to hang around London with a hot coffee in my hand, waiting for a stray Milliband needing some refreshment to pluck me out of my provincial nightmare?

I wonder which lucky bastard bought this for him

 The underlying request amongst most users of interns anonymous is that these internships should be regulated with a statutory minimum pay. This might seem like the reasonable thing to do when so many of us are suffering at the hands of that amorphous tentacled monster in London. However, as media and public affairs have been professionalized, certain principles have slipped. Our constitution is gradually eroding and our reporting remains as unreliable as it was during the yellow press period of Hearst's America. The prospect of increasing the regulatory powers of the state sector and paying interns in the media will only entrench these problems or create further negative consequences.

I think one of the key problems of this intern generation is that we're seeking for these organisations, companies and governments to pluck us out of our situation and place us at the peak of their power. For some reason we expect the process of pouring coffee and sending emails for buffoons to be beneficial for us and for that to lead to greatness. Of course it's possible that this minion service we are subjecting ourselves to can be rewarded. However, there is something distinctly unhealthy about requiring umbrella groups to reward us in this way. In order to match the loyalty of this familial cabal set for promotion within London's inner circle, we lose the ability to produce anything of value ourselves. How many people of our generation can actually say they have created something with their bare hands? I think the idea of being self-reliant and creating something with integrity is lost on most of us. I think before we complain about the meagre existence of internships, we need to reflect on what way each of us has attempted to create our own opportunities, our own products or our own campaigns.

I'm a recent NCTJ graduate seeking work as a sports journalist. I have already completed one unpaid internship and intend to start another very soon in London.

I fully appreciate that for some people internships, especially long-term ones, can be difficult to commit to due to financial restrictions. But, for me it all boils down to how much desire you have to succed in your chosen career.

After completing my studies earlier this year I found it hard to find full-time work as a journalist and decided that completing an internship was the answer. However, I didn't have much money so I moved home to save on rent and embarked on a three-month money saving mission. I took the first two jobs I was offered on a building site and in an Ice Cream parlour and I saved enough money to move to London and begin an Internship.

I fully believe that the money I made knocking down walls and selling Calippos, Fabs and Madagascan Dark Chocolate Magnums to enable myself to do another internship will lead me into the career I so passionatly want to succed in.

During my first internship I felt I was genuinely producing better stories than some of the staff reporters and politely took it up with the editor. He agreed I was contributing well to the running of the website and agreed to pay me full expenses. He said that me doing this demonstrated maturity and confidence in my ability. I have since started to do freelance work for the same website.

My experiences of interning have been very positive and have given me an insight into the world I want to work in. Without this experience I feel I would be far less equipped to find full-time work and perform well once employed.

I’ve been working as an “intern”, (or if you prefer, substitute the usual ‘unpaid, unappreciated, exploited office helot without whom the entire company would implode’) in a business organisation  for the past 3 months. Technically, I should be getting some specific experience and in fairness I have been, for a given value of ‘some’. The trouble is all the other stuff I’ve been asked to do. Like organise and book my boss’s holiday, book restaurants for his friends, find tickets for shows, go to the supermarket, squeeze fruit into juice for 5 hours for a cocktail party etc etc. My boss once made me go to the cash machine, and honestly I have never been so tempted to commit a crime in my life.

The most recent outrage He Who Must Not Be Named has perpetrated was to ask me to track down a certain kind of foodstuff as a gift for some friends: and this item, believe you me, is rare as hen’s teeth. Probably rarer. So I call up Harrods, Harvey Nicks, Selfridges, all the major supermarkets and some of the minor ones too. No go. Then I trawl through the internet. No luck, except a cash and carry who demand you buy 100 of them. For a moment I’m tempted to do so, just to see his face as 100 of the dratted things are unloaded into my his hallway. Most people by this stage would give up, but my boss is made of sterner stuff; that sort of attitude did not win us the Empire. No lily-livered surrender for them. He Who Must Not Be Named resembles an angry deity, propitiated only by the sacrificial sweat of their workforce. Boss decides that the thing to do is to ring up the factory where it’s made –in China.  He reasons that everybody speaks English these days so they must have someone who can help. With some scepticism I call them, and sure enough the person on the other end of the line has no idea what I’m saying and eventually I thank them for their time (in English, since my school didn’t stretch to Mandarin) and hang up. I’m told to send an email, which I duly do. This saga has started to haunt my waking and sleeping: I’m so irrationally stressed about it that I’m almost weeping in frustration. This is compounded by being sent texts about it at 9pm on a Sunday evening, for example.

I have a Master’s degree from Durham and this is what I’m reduced to. Like an idiot, or a masochist, I take it, partly because I’ve been brought up to be helpful and partly because I’m so desperate for a job now that I’d probably Morris dance naked on the House of Commons roof if it meant someone would offer me one. I’m terrified that any refusal will lead to a terrible reference, so my boss can dangle the prospect of a permanent position at the end of this stint (which, incidentally, has no official end date, so I could be working for free forever or until I find another job), ensuring that I never refuse to do anything, no matter how absurd or mundane. In the meantime I am effectively paying, since I have to pay for my own travel expenses, to have my dignity and self-respect peeled away, layer by layer, as though flayed alive. Even prostitutes get paid for their services; interns have to pay their punters. And meanwhile employers still want their pound of graduate flesh, and we still give it to them.

I want a cocktail

As an ex head of department of fashion and textiles at UK and USA universities I am all for gaining experience through practice in an industrial context. Having said that it should be during the period of ones degree, not after their studies as graduates. 

Students of art and design are now clients, they come into education with a purpose, to gain knowledge and skills and develop an intellectual agility in preparation for their future career. With luck they fine tune creativity to a point where an innovative approaches to problem solving is second nature. 


With most students struggling to maintain their studies in a climate of financial constraint, often living below the national poverty line, it would be criminal for educational establishments not to provide a placement program of some description during the three or four year study period. I have always been of the opinion that during this placement period some sort of remuneration is required whether a small salary or reimbursement of expenses, even students have to eat and pay their rent and not all are blessed with wealthy parents. 


The provision of a placement program during study not only provides the student with an attractive CV, it also develops a discourse between industry and education that in turn can provide many other benefits not necessarily apparent at the time. I just wish that government bodies where more supportive of our young thinkers as they are the future for societal, economic and creative innovation.

This comment originally appeared on the Creative Review website.