Is CBS News' Unpaid Internship Fair?
(CBS/iStockphoto)
The only compensation CBS provided to the interns was a $6 daily credit for lunch in the cafeteria. Even if they found temporary accommodation in a dorm or a cheap room in an outer borough, those interns who could not commute from home had to pay at least $700 per month – if they were lucky – to live in New York. (Rent in DC is not much cheaper.) Add in travel costs, food, and incidentals and an average intern would likely have to spend a few thousand dollars to participate in the program.
It can be a good investment. Curcio says that in the past 46 months, CBS News has hired 49 former interns. (There are part-time interns during the school year, though in small numbers; at the moment, CBS News hosts 44.) Colleen Ferreira, a junior at St. Mary's College in Indiana, interned at "The Early Show" this summer. He parents gave her the money to make it work; had they not, she says she would have dug into her savings. "I feel bad for people who can't afford to do it, but it's not fair to pay me for this amazing experience I had," says Ferreira, who ran into Hannah Storm at a Notre Dame football game earlier this year and shared a hug with the "Early Show" anchor. Ferreira hopes to use her connections to score a full-time job at CBS News after she graduates.
Arden Farhi, a senior at Washington University in St. Louis, interned at CBS News for the second time this summer, though he almost had to forgo the opportunity. "I wanted to come back, but I was hesitant as far as being able to afford it," he says. He pulled it off by scrimping and saving – not eating out, little in the way of nightlife. "Do I like working for free? Of course not," says Farhi, who hopes to join CBS News as a paid employee. "But you pay to get ahead in the field. And it's worth it."
But is it fair?
