Summer Media Internship

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?

I think that the blog article that the author wrote was irresponsible. Any one who has ever taken a journalism class in their lives knows that you need to have yoru facts straight and check your sources. Why he even decided to focus on the man’s apartment is beyond me. If the man was this awesome jazz musician, why not focus on that? Instead, he chose to focus on the man’s messy room. How trivial. How he could have written the article without talking to the musician’s family is also beyond me; it sounds like it was rushed a carelessly done.

If the blog had been posted on TMZ or Perez Hilton, okay, maybe your journalistic integrity won’t be held to such a high standard. However, when you’re writing for the New York Times, even if it is a blog, you’re expected to carry over those same skills.

I can’t add a whole lot to this thread that hasn’t yet been said. Many of us have the opportunity to gain helpful insight into the field of journalism and work first hand in the aspects that are going to be more prevalent in journalism’s future, such as video editing or web design. Unfortunately, there are many of us, myself included, whose duties can reach into reorganizing closets and coffee fetching. However, I do subscribe to the “you gotta start somewhere, mailroom to vice president” tale that so many of us have heard.
I find myself unable to understand why a media source would ask universities to pay for their students’ work. That, to me, is just a cheap shot in exploiting both the student and his/her educational institution. I will say that when I received the bill for this course- (somewhere upwards of $700- I was amazed that Baruch could charge so much for me to offer my labor with little in return for me but another line to add onto my resume and 2 months of “radio station experience.”
The fact is Baruch will never drop the registration fee for the internship course, but realistically, this internship is not like taking a summer course in biology or mathematics, where costs must be covered for the professors. Where does our semester fee go to? I believe that our internships should pay for part of our course registration fee if they can’t give us actual weekly stipends. No student should ever have to pay to give their labor.

As a rising senior, there is so much pressure to get a job,  but taking into consideration the economy, sometimes we have to start at the bottom which means an unpaid internship. It is always said that we have to work our way up, but how far does it go? As the article stated, newspaper companies are downsizing, and in order to save their budget and efforts, they are taking advantage of interns. Student interns provide cheap or in most cases free labor. Student interns end up doing the dirty work without any pay and in some cases without really learning about their industry. However, this does not mean they are working less, in fact they are given more responsibility that staff workers should be paid for. I see this first hand at my internship. Yet the decision is hard to make, especially for low income families. If they had a choice to work at a fast food chain versus an unpaid internship in the field of their interest, they might find themselves opting for the prior simply because they are earning a salary. While taking an internship will be beneficial in the long run with an addition to your resume and maybe a few references, in the short run, it is not enticing. I believe that interns at the least should receive a stipend for transportation and food, on the premise that there is a possibility of future employment.
In newspaper journalism, the available jobs are low,  however with technology and the internet, other forms of online journalism is spurting up. Since I do not get paid, I am a little bias, but I do feel as if my position could be done by a paid staff, yet the company cannot undertake the extra load. Personally the only reason why I would take an unpaid internship is if there is a chance of advancement.
I agree with a previous comment that said that if you work more than 20 hours you should be getting paid. Most internships require now that you get school credit if you choose to intern with them, this is not always a plus because students have to pay for tuition on top of that.

Blogs are definitely a less professional way of spreading news than some other methods, such as newspapers. They usually have opinions as well as  news (if they have any news at all).

There are different standards for blogs, and of course people should follow ethical rules whenever posting. But that doesn’t always happen because posters want their blogs to be popular and read by others, or they simply think that what they are posting isn’t that bad to begin with. Whatever the reason, blog posters should be allowed to post what they want so long as they are ready to face whatever emotion their posts incite on the readers.