Inquirer Editors Say Internship Program "Hasn't Changed"
PHILADELPHIA, PA (October 14, 2008) – Earlier this week the dean of the University of North Carolina's School of Journalism and Mass Communication wrote on her Blog that the Philadelphia Inquirer had asked the school to pay the newspaper to support college students' internships. Dean Jean Folkerts said that each school that paid the newspaper would be guaranteed to have one of the Inquirer's 12 internships.
Folkerts went on to say that the Inquirer told her that the newspaper can no longer afford to pay for the entire college intern program, and that union rules prohibit interns from working for free – so the universities should help out by pitching in to help cover the cost. The dean said that if that's the case, UNC will not be participating in the Inquirer's internship programs.
But today the Inquirer's deputy managing editor and photography director told Maynard Institute columnist Richard Prince that Folkerts' version of the internships "isn't shared by the newspaper," and they also say they have not changed their internship policy.
"I asked Dean Folkerts whether UNC would be interested in helping underwrite an internship, for either all or part of the cost," Inquirer deputy managing editor Vernon Loeb says in Prince's column. "We've never said that we won't have any internships if colleges won't fund them, only that we'd like colleges to help, to the extent they're able. Without some assistance, we wouldn't be able to fund all 12 summer internships on our own. ..."
Inquirer photography director Hai Do, who manages the intern program, told Prince that he'd be "the last one to deny an internship to a deserving student because his school would not or could not pay." Do told the columnist, "I know how tough it is to start without a high school or college degree." Do and his family escaped Vietnam by boat in 1975.
Prince says that Folkerts stands by her initial comments, and that she "heard what she heard."
Do says the interns are picked first, before the schools are solicited for financial support.
The Pandora's Box about who is going to foot the bill for college journalism student internships (other than the traditional funder, individual newspapers) may have been opened last year by the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, IN. The Notre Dame magazine reported in the Summer 2007 issue that the school's John W. Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy helped secure internships for Notre Dame students at the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Concord Monitor, and the Los Angeles Times last year by paying for the positions at the Inquirer and Monitor, and by securing a private donor to pay the cost of the internship at the Times.
The magazine says Notre Dame's Gallivan program got the idea for underwriting the Inquirer, Monitor, and Times internships based on a similar arrangement the university has had with the South Bend Tribune for internships since 2003.
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