This spring, undergraduate coder and incoming Facebook intern Aran Khanna published a problem with Facebook Messenger, the most popular app on the entire iTunes Store: it was transmitting your location to everyone and you probably had no idea. Instead of rewarding his vigilance, Facebook fired him.
Following the death of an overworked, epileptic Bank of America intern last August in London, the bank yesterday sent a memo to employees instructing analysts and associates to spend at least four weekend days per month away from the office. Generous.
This week, veteran journalist Nate Thayer posted to his personal blog an email exchange he'd recently had with an editor from the Atlantic. The editor was asking Thayer to take something he'd already written and adapt a shorter version for use on the Atlantic's website, but there was a catch: The editor wanted Thayer to do it for free. "I am a professional journalist who has made my living by writing for 25 years," Thayer wrote, "and am not in the habit of giving my services for free to [for-profit] media outlets so they can make money by using my work and efforts by removing my ability to pay my bills and feed my children."
Unpaid internships are controversial. "Workplace experience, invaluable connections, blah blah," say the employers. "You fired your lowest-wage workers and now you have us doing their menial jobs which have nothing to do with 'education,'" say the actual interns. All sides should be able to agree on this: unpaid internships—essentially part time jobs that pay nothing—are an incredible hardship for students without money, thereby tilting the playing field wildly in favor of students with money (as if they needed any more help).
Gawker is taking on a gaggle of paid fall interns, beginning in September. If you are: interested in blogging and journalism, New York-based, familiar with Gawker's tone and content, a good writer, a quick learner, and overall an excellent human specimen, this is the internship for you.
People lose jobs all the time by writing dumb stuff on Twitter. But Newton's Third Law of Internet Dynamics means people also get jobs by writing dumb stuff on Twitter. Well, in this case it's internships: the New York Times recounts how the ad agency Campbell Mithun hired six summer interns via a Twitter competition, "The Lucky 13," wherein they had to come up with 13 tweets making their case.
First, there were paid internships. Those were okay. Then, there were unpaid internships. Those were just slightly better than nothing. Now, there are internships you pay for, which won't even get you a high-paying job. Those are a scam.
Every ambitious young person in New York wishes to secure a position as an intern in the court of the city's benevolent philosopher-king, Michael of Bloomberg. But how can one get a City Hall internship? Simply follow our foolproof plan!
Are you an LA-based cool person with "a dependable car or Vespa?" If so, you can be an intern for point-and-shoot nightlife photography conglomerate The Cobra Snake! Successful candidates will also have an "opportunity to learn about Vintage clothing."
The auction for a Vogue "internship" has closed. The price to spend a week at the office and meet Anna Wintour: $42,500. Which is probably more than the annual salary of a Vogue editorial assistant. [Image via Getty]
Anna Wintour: "Just Being Near Her Will Make You Chic." Did you know that? Now is your chance to bid on a "priceless week-long experience" with Anna, for charity. It's just as worthless as an internship, but costlier!
Journalism training in Korea has all the hallmarks of a good reality show: Cub reporters must drink themselves silly, stay awake around the clock, sleep together, and stab one another in the back. It makes Columbia look like Coney Island.
An unpaid internship at Versace is now up for auction. (The current bid is $3,000.) Ever wish you could hold up Donatella Versace's dress as she squats over a port-a-potty and flicks cigarette ash into the palm of your hand? Now you can! And you can pay for the pleasure! [FWD]
Blind items! They happen. Especially in Craigslist's depths, where inanity prevails in the form of, among other ways you never wanted to consider possible, job listings. So we want to know: which "highly visable" former Obama roommate needs an assistant?
A homeless woman has landed a (coveted?) four-month internship with Elle magazine, proving that unemployed journalists need only fall a *little* farther to get "back in the game."
Huzzah, the time has come for yet another "Awful Craigslist Media Job Ad of the New Depression." This one has a riddle!
• It looks like it's over for Paris Hilton and boyfriend Doug Reinhardt. Please excuse us while we go get a big box of tissues; we really weren't mentally prepared for news this upsetting this morning. [People, Sun]
• A couple of weeks ago, it was Gwynnie Paltrow who was getting blamed for setting A-Rod up with Kate Hudson. Now real estate "superagent" Adam Modlin is taking credit for brokering the transaction. Go figure. [NYDN]
• Maybe Kanye West and Amber Rose didn't break up, after all. Or maybe they did break up, but they're spending a lot of time together anyway? It's a mystery, really. [P6]
• Coco Rocha is not going to be an intern at Vogue this summer. She's just spending a lot of time there so she can "learn more about the business." [WWD]
Would you like to pay $13,000 for the privilege of doing free work for a website for a couple months? Too bad, kid, because the next minimum bid on the HuffPo internship is $15,500.
What's your kid planning to do this summer? For a mere $5,000-$9,500, an outfit called University of Dreams guarantees it will score your kid an internship at Donna Karan, or you get your money back. Private yoga and Kabbalah sessions with Donna herself not included. [WSJ]
The ongoing collapse of the American economy means middle-class college grads must behave like coddled aristocratic twits and secure internships through their parents' largesse.
