Summer Media Internship

After reading the article and several different people’s perspectives on it, there are a couple of different things to consider. First and foremost, this post, written by Corey Kilgannon, was for a blog. As journalism becomes more and more digitally based, the lines that separate “real” journalism and what constitutes a blog (or as most people think of it, opinionated, colorful stories with large aspects of factual information) will slowly disintegrate.
In my opinion, a family will be sensitive about what a reporter says regarding the recently deceased pretty much no matter what. For an opinionated blog, it’s best to just say what you want to say. Furthermore, I don’t think Kilgannon was trying to attack the jazz artist, Hank Jones, at all. I felt that he wrote this post out of respect for a legend, and tried to show his other fans what he might have been like in his final days.
On the other hand, I wonder if this post have been so controversial had the blog not been written by a NY Times reporter (and I am assuming for the NY Times blog page). When you are already affiliated with a news source that prides itself on being such a strong force in journalism, anything you write will be expected to adhere to the same strict standards. As a journalist, perhaps you forfeit your right to write off of opinion, even if it is for a blog.
The other aspect that must be taken into consideration is that Kilgannon did not break into Jones’ apartment. He was let in by the landlord, Manny Ramirez. I’ve noticed a few different people in this class put a lot of blame on Kilgannon for not asking permission from the family to enter the apartment. In reality, no journalist wants more blockades to creating a story. If a police officer let me pass through yellow tape, I would not ask “are you sure, officer?” Kilgannon was offered an exclusive window into Jones’ life in a creative way that is certainly indicative of the NY Times’ style. No, it is not enough to make assumptions about his entire life and perhaps saying that he was reclusive was a bit far-fetched. And yes, he probably ought to have shared what he had found with the family before it ran to print. But I do not believe that Kilgannon is at fault for entering the apartment and starting to take notes without asking the family first. If people want to point the finger at someone, it should be Ramirez.

Though many students seem to start discussing new topic already, I have some comment on the article about paid internship.  I agree most of the students’ saying that there should be more paid internships to train journalists of future.  About ten years ago, when political and economic crisis happened in Finland, the government cut budgets for all departments except for education.  Now the educational level of children in Finland is incredibly high.  Raising and training younger generation should be the one that the older must not cut the cost but spend money most.

On the other hand, I am now an unpaid internship and very happy to work there.  one of the reasons is because I do not think that I deserve paid internship yet.  Though I am fortunately assigned many kinds of tasks, such as press release, store blog, and translation of documents, I still do not feel doing good enough to be paid.  Internship should be the opportunity that interns, especially college students, realize the difficulty to earn money.  Interns are usually highly motivated, and some of them are very skilled from the very beginning.  However, paid workers have done what they have to do for long tim and been trusted that they could do their job by their bosses.  This difference between full-time workers and interns should be obvious.

What I am saying here my be too idealistic, but internship must not be the object of cutting expenditure but starting point to become independent financially.

It’s sad to understand that companies do abuse their interns for free labor. I don’t think that I feel that at my internship…yet. I’m extremely comfortable, but I do see when I’m asked to cover stories too much, my budget gets too too tight. And being that I work it’s okay, but sometimes it gets a little out of hand when the internship starts hitting your wallet hard.  Oh the joy of getting experience.

To fine employers for internships could sway them away from taking them on no? Then how will we get that “experience” that we supposedly need to much to make it in this world!  Oh man.  It’s like supporting the lesser of two evils. I just don’t know which way to turn.  I’m happy I have an internship, yet I fully empathize with this article.

I like this part:

“If you’re a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren’t going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law”

It’s just like I said in the first post where if someone is making money off of your labor, there’s no possible circumstance where it’s ok for you not to get compensated.  And apparently it is illegal too.

It’s nice to know there are specific criteria about how an unpaid internship can be legal.  Below is one-

“that the employer “derives no immediate advantage” from the intern’s activities”

It backs up the previous point.  Also, the way it’s described is like a vocational school (a.k.a. an apprenticeship) which is the only way it seems appropriate, and even then there should (and with trade jobs, usually is) some form of compensations.

I also agree with this point fully:

“While many colleges are accepting more moderate- and low-income students to increase economic mobility, many students and administrators complain that the growth in unpaid internships undercuts that effort by favoring well-to-do and well-connected students, speeding their climb up the career ladder.”

It’s hard for low (myself) and middle income students as it is, but to ask that we give more time to a project without making any money is absurd, and sometimes impossible.  For all the students who have yet to pay their own bills, that may be a non-issue, but if ‘they’ really want us to get a college education they need to find a way to make it more realistic for everyone.

There still is and always will be a certain amount of ‘sucking it up’ to get where you want to be.  Some simply won’t be able to make it, and they will never see the results.  That’s just how our society works sometimes.  Right now we’re set in the direction of this becoming (or has it already become) the norm, and most colleges require it.  That doesn’t make it any easier; for anyone on that path, good luck.

At the end of the day online blogs and print articles usually take the same course. There is an idea for a story and the journalist takes the necessary means to develop the story and present it to their reader. Therefore all ethical standards set up by the news organization should be followed. There are lawyers that give legal advice to newsrooms about any tricky issues that may be legally controversial. Applying what I learned in a Media Ethics class (which I think every student should take) the information shared on the blog was not public fact nor was it in public domain. Therefore the average Joe would not have access to this information. Although it was a mere snapshot, and blogs are usually in nature a small insight and commentary of a topic, when it comes to the deceased people are usually sensitive.
There is even an Act in law that protects the owner or writer of a blog for being held responsible for any information that is added by a third party. Kilgannon in some respects did intrude on a private space. It would have been wise for him to consult the family members of the Jones to avoid any conflicts.
Also Kilaganon is not writing for the National Inquirer, but the New York Times. Most news organizations like the Times have pages and online information on their journalistic standards. In fact it is also encourged for the journalist to seek legal advice, when an ethical matter arises.

The job market is really scary right now, especially for the journalism field. I know many students who took advantage of going to school and gaining a BA in Journalism, but during that entire time they were working for free at different magazines/newspapers and collecting unemployment. Now that unemployment is being reduced and extensions are done with, a lot of these students fear they will continue to work for free at these publications and never be picked up to be on staff.

This NY Times article brings up an interesting point about violating minimum wage and work labor laws. I think a lot of companies are just riding it out until action is taken by the Department of Labor, but something has to be done soon. So many new writers and freelancers are becoming scared to venture into the field that they have a passion for and are forced to work meaningless job that they have no love for, just to make ends meet. It shouldn’t be like that.

There are so many loops holes in these labor and discrimination laws that employers are aware of and they continue to take advantage of it.

There are different standards for Blogs. But it also matters the source of the blog and what it is trying to represent. For the NYT to violate someone’s privacy, as I feel they have in the case of Corey Kilgannon, is more upsetting than if it had been by another unknown and unaffiliated blogger. The standards for the NYT weather it be a blog or an article are set higher by it’s readership. While we are interested in knowing what Kilgannon’s room was like, it matters how that knowledge was obtained and if that information could be more accurate and better contextualized. Especially in the matter of a deceased care should be given to the portrait that is painted of that person, for they can’t defend themselves. The family should have been contacted before print. I do think that blogs are and should be a more informal medium where preliminary research and information can be expressed before an in depth article is written on the subject, but lets not throw away journalistic integrity and our ethics for the sake of a blog.

It is hard to compare standard news reporting with blogging because ultimately, they are two very different platforms. Blogging is a casual, quick spurt of news, while newspaper provide accurate, formal presentations of issues. Kilgannon stated that this was a “snapshot” of the musician, and a snapshot to me is only a mere glimpse, as oppose to an autobiography. The point I am trying to get across is that, under the circumstances, I dont believe the reporting violated any privacy ethics. Firstly, he was let in by the landlord and simply wrote a piece on what he saw, although to the family it may have come off a disrespecful, we should take into consideration that it was a blog, which should imply the informality of the whole piece. The relatives claim this was an inaccurate portrait of the jazz player.  To some it may seem a little invasion but in today’s age, people invite others to follow their lives via facebook, twitter and other social networks. Although this may not be legitimate reporting under the standards, it is still freedom of speech. Readers should just be cautious and weary of what they choose to believe. Additionally, newspapers are not always correct, there is always room for error. It is important to distinguish the two different mediums and take what you read with a grain of salt.
Blogging is becoming more popular because of its accessibility and convenience. It is hard to limit it’s use and even control what is being written. Since this blog was part of a The Post, we should feel there is some responsibility what the reporting is writing about. I don’t believe Kilgannon meant to be hurtful, just to show a different side of the artist.
The publishing world should start to address these matters and consider what the best option would be to eliminate any future problems, although at this rate, privacy is very uncertain. Since the reporter had a relationship with the Jazz player, that may have pose a problem in terms of being bias. I do not find a problem with blogging as supplementary commentary as long there is still legitimate reporting.

The NYTimes had a long discussion of this issue in April that I should have distributed with my first post. Here it is.

I have to say that  I believe that the reporting done by the Times reporter was just too much. There is a fine line between facts and class, and this guy had no class to reveal the lifestyle of a 90-something year old jazz legend without even consulting the family! As a practicing reporter, I feel that I would never reveal things that would harm someone, unless they were secretively trying to harm others. That is the only reason to bring shame to a person, nothing else. I mean look at it this way, the family said that there was no reason for a reporter to be there without one of them, and there was thanks to the landlord. End of story, the reporter got his head stuck up his ass and thought he hit a goldmine with discovering hte humble living of the old jazz star. My god, how stupid could the reporter, or better yet, how low could he have been?