Internal needs
Magazines are getting pretty good at taking advantage of interns on the editorial side -- some taking more (unpaid) advantage than others -- but there is apparently a paucity of places for young, up-and-hopefuls on the art side.
Barbara Solowan, the Art Director of Canadian Art and MoneySense magazines, urged participants in the CMPA's Professional Publishing Program in Niagara on the Lake to build some money (and some honoraria) into their budgets for art interns. (That includes having a spare workstation available for the intern.) Without such a forward-looking system, she fears, there is going to be a shortage of good people in years to come with practical experience putting out real magazines.
As more and more magazines (including Canadian Art and MoneySense) rely on freelance art directors and freelance or just-in-time art staff, having interns aboard brings enthusiasm and energy to the whole business -- plus ensuring that we have a ready supply of experienced art directors in the years to come.
Barbara Solowan, the Art Director of Canadian Art and MoneySense magazines, urged participants in the CMPA's Professional Publishing Program in Niagara on the Lake to build some money (and some honoraria) into their budgets for art interns. (That includes having a spare workstation available for the intern.) Without such a forward-looking system, she fears, there is going to be a shortage of good people in years to come with practical experience putting out real magazines.
As more and more magazines (including Canadian Art and MoneySense) rely on freelance art directors and freelance or just-in-time art staff, having interns aboard brings enthusiasm and energy to the whole business -- plus ensuring that we have a ready supply of experienced art directors in the years to come.
posted by D. B. Scott at
1:37 pm
2 Comments:
The same thing is true in circulation to some extent.
However, I suspect the shortage of "upwardly mobile" circ professionals is due to the relative rarity of mid-size publishing firms.
Tiny publishers have eager staff who get invaluable wide-ranging skills, and who are often desperate to learn more, but there's nobody "above" them to learn from in their organization ... no mentors.
And (as I understand it) the large multi-title publishers give their staffmembers specific roles to do, for a wide variety of titles, but have very few positions where junior and mid-level employees can broaden their experience. (In the circulation area, I gather this means that some staff do list ordering, others do print ordering, others do analysis, others supervise newsstand marketing, and so on.) How do you groom someone for managerial "big-picture" responsibilities, if they've been wearing blinkers for their entire career?
And -- whether it's smaller art departments, or vertical job functions in circulation departments -- I hope we're talking about encouraging PAID internships. I don't like the idea of publishing firms gradually replacing paid positions (such as those that have already been phased out in cost-cutting moves) with unpaid internships (because the remaining employees can't keep up with the workload). It distorts our business economics and makes it harder for other firms to compete without doing likewise.
If it takes X people to do Y hours of work, let's not lose sight of that. If publishers have specific seasonal or part-time challenges due to production cycles or whatnot, then by all means hire a junior person for a relatively modest wage, on a temporary contract, with an explicit understanding that they will be given plenty of opportunity to learn, as part of their compensation.
When I hear the word "honorarium" I think "busfare", not "a modest living wage because they're just starting out".
Payment for interns range from, usually, nothing, to as much as $450 a week. There seems to be several views about internships:
One is that internships are not jobs, but an extension of people's education and interns should be (and often are) grateful for the opportunity.
Another is that some magazines can barely pay their staffs, let alone interns, and that while interns provide real value, they are paid in learned and resume-building skills. So, magazines like This Magazine say, with not a little regret, that they have no choice but to have unpaid interns.
Still another is that, almost from their first day on the job, interns do real work and should get real pay of some sort. This is meant to reflect not so much the actual value of the work, but the flat fact that it costs someone money to live while interning. This is the view that magazines like Toronto Life or The Walrus or Maclean's reflect. (Maclean's, of course, is unionized and has to negotiate the working conditions and payment for their two summer interns.)
John Macfarlane, the Editor of Toronto Life, says that there has hardly been a hire onto regular staff in the past few years who has not already been through an internship. I imagine that many such editors and publishers use this sort of "tryout" strategy to allow them to identify likely candidates for real jobs.
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