Journalism Intern Working Without Pay

* Journalism student Connie Sung complains about being paid in the form of “experience” rather than wages in her job as a magazine intern (Voices, Dec. 30). No one forced her to go to USC (a private school with high tuition) or take the internship. I think she fails to see the value of her experience: the free education and the future payoff.

Several years ago I too was an unpaid magazine intern (at a publication that now pays its interns). But while I was doing all that fact-checking, instead of feeling resentful, I absorbed all I could from watching and talking to the editors I worked for. Any editorial position in Southern California is hard to find, so I was grateful for the internship and learned far more than I did in the classroom. I eventually was hired as a part-time assistant. And now? I’m the regional editor of that same magazine, L.A. Parent.

KAREN LINDELL

Sierra Madre

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I totally agree with Sung’s youth essay that unpaid internships are discriminative and hard on students. But there is a remedy here. Even in journalism there are paid internships. I know because I had two during my student career (a very long time ago). But even today, the paper I work for (Daily Variety) offers them. In fact, we have some very bright students from USC as interns. Granted, the internships don’t pay as much as the jobs do, but then which internship does? I have worked at other newspapers both in Los Angeles and in Chicago, and some offered paid internships and some didn’t. It was up to the student to find the ones that did. When I was at the Medill School of Journalism, the placement office helped us find paying internships.

SHALINI DORE

Arcadia