Internships are collateral damage

As a student at Tufts, I read with interest AJR's latest article on journalism internships in today's climate.

Will Skowronski writes in "Priceless":

Many news organizations have eliminated paid internships to save money. Others are depending on interns like never before, giving them assignments that once would have gone to more experienced staff reporters.

Reading that, you would think that a bounty of paid journalism internships existed before times got tough; not true, not at least in my past four years as a Communications and Media Studies minor. Esther, an intern at the Somerville News, could speak to this more, but I've definitely found myself taking on more responsibility at internship sites than I would have anticipated.

If you don't pay an intern (and really, even if you do), news organizations have an unwritten obligation to create the best experience within their power. It's crucial and valuable to develop fundamental journalism skills like interviewing and writing, but it almost goes without saying that all interns should be exposed to web journalism. In a field whose future will be primarily web-based, it would do interns a great disservice not to let them gain the web skills they need. That is of course assuming the intern herself doesn't end up giving the newspaper's new media department a crash course in "The Twitter."