I did two internships in college, and one of them was at a newspaper you can figure is the same size as the Planet. It was a 15-week summer internship; they usually range from 10-15 weeks. I worked on the copy desk, but there were 13 interns in various departments including Features, Metro, Photo, Graphics and Investigative. The interns did the same work the staff members did. We had a huge A1 package run on TSA safety breaches that summer and I remember the I-team intern got to work on it. Talk about a great clip for her portfolio!
It was paid, and I also got credit at school. Some interns are in grad school, and some are doing them after their senior year of college, but most are still working on their degrees. Some colleges require you to do one before you graduate. I mentored our intern this summer and she had finished everything toward her degree except the internship requirement so she wasn't allowed to graduate until the end of the summer. Lame. Fortunately, my school didn't do that.
One other thing: With the way the journalism market is today, it's hard to even get considered for a job anywhere out of college without at least one internship. I was fortunate to have done two, and while four years ago that was the exception, it's fast becoming the rule. We had interns here this summer that had worked at the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Houston Chronicle. Not too shabby for little ol' Seattle, eh?
