and for free.

Journalism Sometimes it's possible to be ready to blog about something then find someone else has done the job for you, ironically on this occasion since Sian is writing about someone else who is trying to get someone to else to do a job for them, and for free.

The whys and wherefores are captured here but what it boils down to is a freelancer who writes for "womens" magazines wanting an intern to essentially find stories and do the grunt work on stories to save her the bother, unpaid.

As Sian notes it's been knocking around in Twitter all day but there's been no word from the journalist who has generally been kicked around by social networking's core user base for her presumptuousness.

Internships have been something of a transparent dangling carrot for me.  I know that they would be valuable experience and good fun, but I feel so old now that the imperative to also have money to walk around, eat and pay the rent also weighs heavy.

Unless anyone, as ever, has any ideas ...

It reminds me of an article I read many moons ago about an intern who hired an intern (the source of which I can't remember so again, ironically, I've asked someone else).  Expect an update should it turn up.

Updated:  06/07/2010

It was an article I heard.  Many thanks to Apricot at AskMe for identifying that (somewhat inevitably) it was a piece on This American Life in episode #385, Pro Se:

Act Four. Underling Gets An Underling.

Stef Willen tells Ira about a time that she took matters into her own hands, even though she was only a lowly production assistant on a reality show. (7 minutes)