May 13, 2009

A different kind of pay wall

Wanted: Aspiring journalist. Requirements: Talent, doggedness and $13,000 for a donation.

Huffington Post, which already doesn't pay its writers, is auctioning off an "eye opening" internship in New York or Washington. So far the top bid is $13,000. From Silicon Alley Insider:
The auction's beneficiary, The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, seems exceptionally worthy. But are unemployed media wannabes really this worthless?

If the top bidder lives in Connecticut, the winner even has to pay sales tax on the internship.

If anyone was going to auction off an internship, though, it would be Arianna Huffington's Huffington Post, which features tons of content generated free by bloggers and celebrities just happy to have a platform. HuffPo did recently start a fund to employ some laid-off investigative reporters, but the company thrives primarily on "citizen" journalism and news that other outlets spend money reporting.

The bidding is in $2,500 increments, so you only need to scrape together $15,500 to get in the job. Hurry up! Only 14 days left!

(h/t Bloggasm)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

For shame.