We mentioned earlier the outrage of a prospective intern approached by the ancient-but-rebranded magazine Atlantic—40 hours unpaid per week. But it turns out it wasn't an isolated incident. They're building an entire slave army!

It's brave to attempt to convince students it would be, in fact, in their best interest to intern for free. But they're calling it "an exciting opportunity":

Thank you again for your interest last spring in the Atlantic Media Fellowship. I am writing to share information about another exciting opportunity we are launching this spring – the Atlantic Media Company Digital Media Internship.

We are looking to identify 4-6 highly driven, bright, entrepreneurial emerging young professionals who might be interested in an exiting new digital media internship from January through May 2009 at the Atlantic Media Company here in Washington, DC. [Something tells us that any candidate fitting that description would not be using their time in this way. -Ed]

I realize you and your peers may be focused on exams and/or the holidays and, for those interested, may already have spring internship placements, but I thought it was still worth sharing this opportunity with you in case you or someone you know might be interested. This last minute request is the result of a unique opportunity to be involved in the creation of several new digital media products that we expect to launch this spring.

I’ve taken the liberty of pasting below a brief position description for this unpaid internship and would ask that you consider sharing this email with any young people who might fit the profile...

We know this internship will provide a unique and special opportunity for any young person interested in digital media – with the chance of being hired on after graduation very much a possibility.

Oh, and! For free, you should be willing and able to do the following things:

* Researching and developing new digital product ideas
* Assisting staff in producing newly launched digital products
* Working with writers, bloggers, and partners in producing and copy editing material for website on deadline
* Writing headlines and summaries for content from The Atlantic contributors
* Adding value to articles and blog posts, including photography and other multimedia
* Guiding user debates in the comments section
* Aggregating interesting material from across the Web
* Maintaining standards of The Atlantic in real time

We feel that the Atlantic should do a 4,000-word, think piece about magazines being built on the backs of unpaid laborers.