HuffPost holds charity auction for internship at $13 000+
May 24
Well, it’s one way to get a job in publishing. The Huffington Post (famed American webpaper founded by Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer) is auctioning off a summer internship for upwards of US$13 000, with all proceeds going to the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. The winning bidder will work at either the New York or Washington office for two to three months and the only condition is that you must be over 18.
This business/charity model does provide an interesting contradiction. There has been a fair bit of grumping by bloggers about how this proves the sorry state of journalism, where the market is about as lively as a dead fish and money buys your way. ‘The Huffington Post – fairly or not – has become a symbol of what's killing professional journalism,’ writes WalletPop’s Geoff Williams. ‘You have to really feel for anyone who is extremely qualified, gung-ho, full of initiative, but who doesn't have the funds or connections it takes to swing an unpaid internship. Unable to compete with the rich kids, that poor but qualified person is shut out from the earliest stage of a career’.
Of course the idea that someone can somehow pay their way into a plush job is unsavoury to say the least. But the HuffPost have inserted a clever little aside here – it is for charity, and it is but one of 25 other internships that will be offered in 2009. I suspect that the HuffPost knew exactly what they were doing all along – staging an event which would garner plenty of media attention, get some oldschool journos in a knot and result in thousands of hits to their site. Before the talk of bribery or charity or anything else, this was first and foremost a PR stunt.
If you happen to be an aspiring blogger and have a cool stash of Ruddmoney aside, then you can bid via charitybuzz. The auction closes on May 28 and the next minimum amount is US$15 500.
JA
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