The Intern Diaries

Your job? To pick them up....Or something like that

When did unpaid work become so glamorous? I think it was sometime after the premiere of MTV’s The Hills, where LC and Whitney frolicked in clothes all day at Teen Vogue, meeting hot band boys on beachside photo shoots draped in the latest designer threads.  

God love Hollywood.

Aspiring journalists are a masochistic mob; myself included. We know very well that the amount of places in the fashion magazine industry is rapidly decreasing, yet we will do anything to get there. This conscious knowledge that there probably won’t be a job at the other end of the internship doesn’t stop us from slaving away, carrying out menial and tedious duties for no pay.

What drives us? Peering over the computer all day at our future- those lucky men and women who actually made it and now spend their days crafting fashion shoots, interviewing designers and attending fancy schmancy soirees every night. Yes, that very image, regardless of how glorified or untrue it may be, is why we do this to ourselves.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t swap most of my internship experiences for anything, they have after all given me an invaluable insight into the media world and a tight, credible resume, but I think it’s time to cut the crap and provide aspiring journalists, PR peeps and film kids with a real snapshot into what they should expect.

“Internship” has incredibly patronising connotations. Students walk around like they’ve landed the greatest job on earth, dropping into conversation,

“Oh yes, I’m just spending my holidays at my Dolly internship.”

The response from the nervous arts student;

“Oh wow, an internshippppp, they’re like, really hard to get, that’s amazing, how glamorous, you’ll be working with make up and clothes all day, you’re sooo lucky.”

Journo student ego is boosted and she goes on living her fantasy-sounding life. 

Gaining an internship in this fiercely competitive and shrinking industry is a great achievement, particularly when publications like The Sydney Morning Herald demand a formal interview process and the uni’s offer short courses to gain ABC internships.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and put everything in perspective.

Interns will usually get the brunt of repetitive admin work like making Excel spreadsheets, calling designers/PR agencies to verify contact information, sort piles of magazines, write product reviews (wow! Actual writing!), researching, statistical data and probably do a hell of a lot of clothing returns if you’re in fashion.

Normal day-to-day housekeeping stuff really, which is good to see how the publication runs at a grassroots level, but does get tedious and frustrating especially when you realize how many amazing and creative things are happening around you.

The good thing about the shrinkage of the print media world is that interns are vital to the daily running of the publication. That means, the days of fetching coffee and going on lunch runs are mostly over, unless you’re interning at a select few fashion magazines which I won’t divulge, just that they’re weekly celeb glossies….oops.    

So interns, get off your high horse, stop spending your time looking cool and “checking in” or tweeting from ‘the office’ and work your arse off. Before you know it you may even have some bylines to your name….ah, to dream.