via Twitter
Every so often, a successful sports media personality will post something about an unpaid internship or similar opportunity on social media, then get ripped by legions of dissenters.
It usually goes like this:
It’s an interesting war between old school and new school, and this time the person getting the criticism is the NFL Network’s Jane Slater:
Harmless, right? Not really.
She got replies like this one:
This is sort of the direction it goes from here. We get into arguments about privilege, and whether you can afford to work without being paid, and other assorted things that take us into Capitalism and race and stuff that’s way out there.
Here’s her blanket reply:
Anyway, the truth is that it’s less about all of that and more about this:
Sports media is supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be competitive. There are few jobs in this field, and what we do is not essential. We’re not doctors or teachers or mail carriers. Ours is a luxury field where you really have to work to carve out a niche and establish a foothold.
As such, rule #1 is this –
There are no rules. Do what you have to do to get a foot in the door and find success in a cutthroat field. Take on an unpaid gig. Work a second job. Take the crap graveyard shift that nobody wants. Go do the radio call for amateur field hockey on a Friday night. These barriers exist not to keep people out based on their socioeconomic status, but by their willingness or unwillingness to go the extra mile.
It goes without saying that yes, people cannot afford to work for free, and as such, most of us worked a paying job and then built experience with a non-paying job. The problem is that a lot folks think that everybody who got vital experience through unpaid internships did so because their parents supported them, or they mooched off a relative, or they were some kind of silver spoon douchebag who benefited from privilege and maybe a little bit of nepotism sprinkled in. You’ll certainly find those types out there, in every field of work, but it’s naive to think that every middle class kid or every college graduate is only successful because of this. Most journalism people took on unpaid work to augment or complement what they were already getting paid to do, i.e. you worked your golf course gig in the summer and did 2-3 nights a week at the Daily Local out in West Chester. You worked at Dairy Queen to make the money, then bolstered your resume with a few four-hour shifts at Eyewitness News. At those points in your life, opportunity is worth just as much as cash.
The other thing is that it’s wrong to assume that the only path to success is through unpaid internships or something similarly linear and corporate. This is the great thing about America, that you can carve your own path to the top. Look at Kyle, who started this website in his basement and is now set for life. Look at the teenage Temple student with a Sixers credential, who has it not because of privilege, but because he’s a hard worker and he’s good at what he does. Also, most college programs come with built-in partnership experience that mirrors what would receive from an internship, so if you’re getting into broadcasting or sports or journalism these days, you definitely do not need unpaid summer newsroom work to land a professional job. Just put together a tape of your best college work and it should be good. You can very easily land a job in a middle-tier media market on college experience alone.
These are basic American things that have been done for ages now. Work hard, seek openings, embrace opportunity. Shove the foot in the door and don’t let it close. You’re gonna have to do things you don’t want to do, make less money than you want to make, and pay dues along the way. That’s the whole point of the system, to foster success for motivated go-getters. It’s not supposed to reinforce complainers.
In Jane Slater’s case, somebody is going to show interest in that unpaid opportunity and benefit from it, while thousands of other people just bitch online instead.