At FSB the Interns Write and Edit the Magazine
I just got a complimentary copy of Fortune Small Business, September 2005, and happened to turn to the Editor’s Notes. Staring back at me was a smiley group of 18-22 year olds. I thought, hmm… this is an awfully young editorial staff. It turned out that they were interns, which made more sense, and gave me some reassurance that the articles within might be of some substance.
However, Managing Editor Dan Goodgame went on to explain that these interns had actually written and edited significant parts of the magazine, and that recent interns are now writers with FSB.
My favorite quote was:
“Other interns I know are making coffee and copies,” says our Brandi Stewart. “They’re surprised that I get to report and write.”
Me too!
I always thought it was a dirty little secret that writers for many established publications are so young and lacking in experience. I didn’t think that this was the kind of thing you highlight prominently.
It doesn’t send a good message to your readers when you say, “Hey! The interns are writing the magazine.” This tends to conjure up images of Jason Blair and Stephen Glass. In any case, I read BusinessWeek.
26. August 2005 at :
Oh, wow!
I know someone who just went over there. She was fired from her previous job for consistently reporting news that had been reported elsewhere (at a shop where recycling news is prohibited).
I wondered?when I heard WHERE she was moving?”how is it that this girl is going to a Fortune pub, a respected pub I would only HOPE to someday join myself?” Now I have my answer.
The glory of the internship. We at Fortune call it unpaid labor! (Well, someone will pay: potentially our readers and the companies we cover.)
You and I are in agreement here, Paul. This is absurd. And before anyone accuses me of jealousy, I’ll admit it! But I’ll also say, these interns have no business jumping in at so high a lever so soon in their careers, and Fortune has no business using them in this way.
Take whatever analogy you want, but reporting is perhaps a bit like car racing. Anyone can drive a car on an open track at 120 mph. It?s about knowing how to maneuver at that speed around other drivers in a myriad of situations that makes someone a champion (instead of you or I, who might end up buried in a steel box following similar circumstances).
A journalist has to know when to quote, when to offer background, how to eek news out of a situation, whom to trust and whom not, when to present information that will be useful to the public but harmful to an individual or when NOT to include information that is interesting but uninformative or simply gratuitous and potentially harmful to source.
Allowing interns to work at such a high level holds the potential to hurt sources who will talk to them because the name Fortune carries incredible weight. Those sources will take calls and TRUST these interns. It is a misplaced trust. Even if these reporters turn out to be Fortune-caliber, a source assumes they were *hired* for that reason, for having already possessed those skills, not that the mantle of those skills was placed upon them?effectively covering a hollow core. They do not assume they are dealing with an intern. Do these interns mention their true statuses to sources? I do doubt this.
If these interns had to start reporting at lesser-known/lesser-respected publications (as I have), they would have to EARN their respect and build their own source lists. They would have to see what happens when a source gets burned accidentally or necessarily (often with the best intentions of the reporter, sometimes out of ignorance), and how these situations are best avoided. They would have to learn how to cultivate news, contacts, and deeper relationships.
We are hardly in a Golden period of journalism. If a typically decent publication such as Newsweek can screw up the Quran story based on overzealously believing its sources, how can Fortune possibly trust the judgment of its interns? Say a source tells one of them that X is happening and that they in turn heard it from someone in a position to know. Does the intern know enough to make that person trace back and figure out HOW they know what they know? Or does the intern take it as gospel and build a story around it? When does the editor get involved?
Fortune would probably respond that its interns are monitored very closely. Are they monitored as closely as Jayson Blair? Stephen Glass? Closer than Judith Miller, who let Ahmed Chalabi (and by extension the State Department) lead her around by the nose regarding Iraq war coverage? Closer than David Brooks who has printed fabrications in his zeal to show that ?blue state? and ?red state? inhabitants are different? Closer than Mitch Albom, who reported events in a sports column that never happened (but were expected to happen) and that his editors didn?t think to omit?
These are instances where writers and editors failed miserably. If the Fortune interns decide a small business has lower profit numbers than is the case or indicate that a product isn?t doing well when it is, etc., they have the potential to cause immense damage to companies ill equipped to fight back or fix their reputations. If they fail in their accuracy or objectivity, I will not blame them as much as I might blame experienced reporters. I, and others, would be more likely to blame Fortune.
The magazine is taking a huge risk of sullying its reputation.
Just who is Fortune trying to impress here anyway? As a journalist, I am disgusted. As a reader, I am troubled. As one who has witnessed and experienced real mentoring of younger reporters, I fear that pushing these interns too far too fast could hurt them. Just who is this for? Is Fortune trying to increase its subscriber base among the intern demographic? Does the magazine think it will earn brownie points among its baby boomer readers, some of whom get peeved when they think about how their kids are typically marginalized when interning?
Has Fortune thought this through?