The New York Times
Ending those unpaid or poorly paying internships isn’t really the answer, David Carr writes in The New York Times. Perhaps the whole concept needs to be rethought, he suggests. Three years ago, Carr reports, Atlantic Media ended unpaid internships and started a year-long fellowship program. Now, 45 fellows work across the company.
The odd thing about those good intentions and enlightened talk? It’s been good for business. The Atlantic is expanding its audience through the magazine and its website, along with The Wire, its high-tempo news site; and Atlantic Cities, a site that covers urban issues. The audience seems to be noticing. According to GfK MRI’s annual survey tracking print and digital readership, The Atlantic has grown 34 percent in the first half of this year.
Carr tried a similar experiment while running Washington City Paper in the ’90s, he writes.
By funding fellowships and entry-level positions, we were able to bring new perspectives aboard by publishing work from Ta-Nehisi Coates, now a senior editor and National Magazine Award winner for The Atlantic (who also contributes to The Times); Holly Bass, a Washington-based performance artist and writer; William Jelani Cobb, a University of Connecticut associate professor, author and essayist who went on to publish in The New Yorker, The Washington Post and TheRoot.com; and Neil Drumming, an alumnus of Entertainment Weekly who is now a critic at Salon and directed and wrote “Big Words,” a feature film that came out this year to great reviews.
On Nov. 5, Poynter hosted a live chat with ProPublica’s Casey McDermott and Kara Brandeisky on their internships, which were funded using Kickstarter. The two are spending the year looking at the world of internships around the country.
Previously: Conde Nast ends internship program
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