Warning: old git about to start an “it were different when I were a lad” monologue.

Here’s some things to think about:
Employers used to pay for training and now they don’t. The cost of training has shifted from the employers to the student and with the arrival of tuition fees that shift will be complete. But it’s not just the cost that has shifted, it is the location of the training.

Journalists used to get trained in work, on the job. They would have some days off for classroom-based training, either with tutors coming in to the workplace or via a local college. Trainees were paid, albeit a lower wage, to recognise the investment the employer was putting in to them and that their output was not as great, or to as high a standard, as the trained staff.

Now students pay for their own education and it is predominantly at university. There is no need for journalism training to be through universities. The government’s desire to artificially increase the number of students carrying on to higher education was a key factor. Employers did not drive this change. In fact, I remember the industry was universally opposed to the first Journalism degree course. But we were told that was where the funding was going and training had to follow the funding. Employers just reaped the benefits as the cost of training was taken away from them.

But that left a void. University is such a different and false environment (ivory towers and all that) that the university-qualified need real experience in the workplace in addition to their courses. Employers are in no doubt: someone fresh out of university is rarely able to hit the ground running. Hence work experience and internships.

But, despite having saved a small fortune by switching the cost of training to the individual student, employers won’t now pay for decent work experience placements. I don’t just mean paying the student for their output or time. Many do not provide the proper support and mentoring for the student on placement.

That has an impact on current staff. Employers will tell their already overworked staff - who are doing the work two people used to do – to look after the work experience student on top of everything else. There is no time off to help the student, provide feedback and advice or write a report.

And now the employers are saying “Look we’ve got you extra reporters in – these three work experience students who work for free”. The only real winner has been the company’s bottom lines (they are still making profits despite the advertising drop).

When the industry trained its own staff it generally trained just enough – why waste money training more than you need? The demand came from employers – how many jobs will I have? Universities train far too many. The demand comes from potential students – how many people are wannbe hacks? That creates over-supply, making wages fall and making it harder to get the lower paid jobs.

I’m a big fan of work experience – well-organised and managed, with on-the-job training, proper feedback and mentoring. But internships are blatantly just employers using free labour.

Many of the stories I've heard from potential claimants are jaw-dropping. Both in terms of the exploitation and the sheer drive that some people show, when going for work. Some of the people who are angriest are the ones who have put the most in - not surprisingly - but particularly where they were misled at the beginning. A lot of companies say that they will start paying in two months, for instance, but six months later, nothing is forthcoming.

It isn't all about a month at a national newspaper. A lot of smaller outfits are pretty much run by interns. These places represent not so much an opportunity to enter journalism as a dead end. They sap people's energies and leave them with nothing. Some people do make it work, and fair play to them.

Harriet, I would guess that your low paid job in Africa is probably far more valuable as experience than most internships. Hopefully, the wage was a sustainable one locally.

Paying people for their work would make internships fair. They would go to the able, rather than the most affluent. It is true that a good deal of the 'opportunities' would vanish, but that is because they are not opportunities. They are non-jobs. Far too many people are doing journalism courses for it to be possible for all journalism graduates to get a job. In this, they have been conned by greedy universities. Unfortunately, the only face-saving route for many lecturers is to tell their students to go and do an unpaid internship. Presumably, that way it looks as if there is light at the end of the tunnel. I think it is just conning people further. The reality - that most journalism graduates will never work in journalism - may be unpalatable, but it is a truth that should be faced, for the sake of future graduates, at least. Tens of thousands of media students graduate every year and they cannot all expect to get work. It's certainly not their fault, but it is a problem and taking more and more work outside the paid economy is not going to make anything better, including the economy.

'It sounds very Lord of the Flies to me.'
I didn't meant to sound like that but the reality is that we are all different in this unequal playing field. Some of us have to work harder than others and it is not fair. I worked at newspaper in Africa for 2 years where I was earning about £300 a month, because 4 years ago nobody would employ me let alone give me an internship, because I come from a single parent family my mother couldn't afford to support my 'journalism dream' as she puts it. The fact is that nobody wants to damage their reputation before they have even got a foot on the ladder. Desperation for a job will push people to do anything and considering the current unemployment figures, unless this is passed as law I really don't think it is going to work now. An intern for a few weeks unpaid is a totally different from working for a 3 months - 1 year unpaid which I think is wrong.

It's difficult to know where to stand on this issue...

Taking a view beyond journalism, the right to be paid for your work is an important one and it is designed to protect the most vulnerable. Also, if the work needs to be done then the company needs to pay for it. Someone should be getting that pay and if you're doing the work and not getting paid you are taking the money from someone else by undercutting them.
Pretty basic arguments you can learn from speaking to a union member for 10 minutes, really.

On the other hand, I don't think that what will happen is that all current w/e will start getting paid; I think that most of it will disappear. Then getting these sorts of placements will become even harder than it is now, and we run the risk of creating an environment, even more so than now, where it is just the well-connected who can get into newsrooms.

If you don't consider it important that a wide range of people are employed in newspapers then this doesn't really matter. We'll just carry on and we'll have papers staffed entirely by middle-class uni graduates from the south east who have relatives/family friends in journalism already.

I've got at least one byline per each week of w/e I've ever done in papers ranging from the Warrington Guardian to The Times and I've only ever been paid once, which was for a day at The People that was explicitly agreed beforehand would be a "shift". I know that I worked equally as hard that day as I did on any other day on national newsdesks but no money was ever forthcoming. I've made good contacts and got nice stories for my portfolio but I still had to take time off work to do these placements and then had to eat beans and pop-tarts for the next month because of it.

I'd like to see a system that would be flexible, where if you sit on your arse and don't contribute anything more than a few tea runs then you would get paid the minimum wage and shown the door at the end of the week but if you do contribute and get a byline then you'd get paid a freelance fee instead.

Inherent in this is motivation to find a story. And even if you don't then the process of speaking to other reporters and the news editor about why your story isn't quite right or what you need to do to improve it is great.

After all, isn't the idea to learn as well. Some of the best advice I've ever had was from a Sunday Times news editor who knocked back a story idea of mine. I learned a lot about what is and isn't a "ST story" or a "Guardian story" or an "East London Advertiser story".

In short, I don't know how to make sure people are treated fairly without closing the door on a lot of opportunity. I think if campaigns like Intern Aware keep having success in places like parliament and in law chambers it'll put pressure on the media to follow.

Well, I would say no to writing for nothing for anyone, and I have done. That aside...

It is a day dream to assume that one day everyone will wake up and start obeying the law. That will happen when the law is enforced. If it takes a union to do that enforcing then so be it.

What seems to be suggested in a few of the above comments is that there will be no take-up of the campaign's offer of legal help and this is not so. There are cases in progress.

A batch of wins will fire a loud warning shot to employers; at the very least, they will not be able to pretend that not paying their workers is legal. It isn't and many of them seem genuinely not to have realised this.

As for everyone for themselves, there is another issue here. A great deal of legislation has been brought in over the years to cover discrimination at work. Employers are obliged to provide disabled access, for instance. Now, if interns are not going to be classified as workers, where does that leave a would-be intern in a wheelchair. Many firms just wont take them on - will discriminate on the basis of disability. Or age - interns have been told they are 'too old'. Should all the female interns have to be pretty or 'up for it'? If internship is the only route into the industry, does that mean it's ok to be ageist or sexist regarding access to the professions?

Would people really choose to throw employment protection to the winds, on the basis that it's every rat for themselves? It sounds very Lord of the Flies to me.

"And after all that there is the fact we are all competing against each other."

Good point. If I say no then someone else will say yes and that ruins my chances of getting some of the big names on my CV because I was waiting around for someone who would pay me to be an intern. At times it is every (wo)man for themselves. Maybe that makes me sound cut throat, which I am not but let's be honest. How many people would say no to GQ, The Guardian, FT, C4, Shortlist or Elle because they weren't going to pay a wage. A friend of mine said, well if you do then you don't really want to get into journalism.

"Burning bridges – Contacts. Contacts. Contacts."
Another good example of where this doesn't work. We all know that journalism is a small, closed industry. Needless to say that news is the fuel so the name of the black sheep of the wanna be's would travel pretty quick. People are willing to give you a chance or at least find a 'friend' who will , why ruin it, when you could find another way around it.
Fair enough, working for free is expensive, I agree but there are part time jobs going. For instance I work in a hospital at nights to supplement my work experience ventures, besides most places where I have been interning have paid for my transport and lunch expect one where most of the desk editors brought me lunch all week.

As The Intern states we have seen wealthy parents who 'buy' internships for their children, but the truth is that it can be done without mummy and daddy, all you need to do is keep trying until it works out.
I am a NUJ member and while I see the benefits, I think that each intern needs to consider their own situation.

This idea that suddenly this will work is a day dream.

I'd like to start by saying how pleasing it is to glean input from Fiona and Martin here - thank you for getting involved.

I've spent over three years interning on and off, although arguably the placements I undertook as a student were classed as work experience. When I interned in New York, I was unpaid because by law I couldn't receive payment but also because the company took on interns for long periods unpaid as a policy. These internships were full on and the interns would work as staff writers. I accepted this fantastic experience unpaid because I learnt so much and it benefitted me more than any monetary contribution could have. Furthermore, nearly all the staff in the office started out as interns - if I was an American national my chances of employment would be considerably higher after such a placement.

How this internship experience fits into this debate is that it really showed me what a proper internship should entail - paid or otherwise. Picking up on the Intern's point: that 'the true meaning of the word lost in the midst of a system that has been heavily abused', what really needs to be addressed first in this country is just what an intern is and what responsibilities and duties they should expect to gain. Whether that's opportunities to write, interview, attend events on press or contribute effectively in any credible way - it's not making coffee, walking the office dog or 'count[ing] down the hours on Twitter and Facebook'. This is where work experience differs from interning.

Internships like this do exist and they are paid. However, they are similar to any other job - you apply and interview for them, in return you are given training, fantastic experience and most importantly, respect. Once we have established what interning involves for graduates (and particularly able students), then we can discuss the matter of paying them.

I happen to know how the campaign was conceived; I conceived it. The initiative was originated by the London Freelance Branch, rather than by Headland House. We are working with head office and the NUJ's legal team.

Now, a common misconception is that we are trying to change the law. In fact, the aim is for employers to obey the existing law. Taking on a worker for free is illegal. Once this is recognised, it wont matter if someone writes 'I will work for nothing' on the bottom of their application letter. If the employer knows that they are breaking the law by accepting the offer, and are likely to endanger their business because of it, then they will think twice.

Aspiring journalists need jobs. However, there will never be enough jobs for every 'wannabe hack'. What is happening now is that employers are recruiting desperate people, knowing that there will never be a job for them.

The people who have come forward for legal help in claiming back the National Minimum Wage are often people who have been lied to about the prospect of work and often people who have worked for many months unpaid. I am not talking about workies getting a flavour of a newsroom; I am talking about people who spend up to a year helping run the newsroom. They simply run out of money.

An issue not discussed here is the inappropriate level of responsibility that is often handed to interns, particularly in small organisations. It probably reflects the inexperience of the management but is most likely used to lure workers into staying with a company that does not pay them. Some of this experience is no doubt very interesting and useful, but someone thrown in as 'intern news editor' is hardly well-trained.

The knock-on effect for journalism is profound, both in terms of quality of output, and in terms of rates across the board. Yes, having a wave of unpaid fresh meat every year is going to affect starting salaries. In real terms, salaries have gone down over the past decade.

The impact for freelances is very great. If an intern will do the job, not as well perhaps, but for nothing, that affects rates. Give an intern a chance, you might say. Well, fine, but there are interns coming up behind them too; undercutting upon undercutting. And at what point does 'unpaid intern' segue into 'paid freelance'?

Unions have always stood for mutual support within an industry. It is better for the workers and leads to better work. The people interning now are the future of the industry. They need support and they also need to learn how to work together.

Interestingly, supporters of this campaign come from across the political spectrum. A good business pays its bills. In the long term, the economy will suffer from swathes of labour being moved into the unpaid sector, however much individual businesses are trying to keep afloat with the labour of others right now.

This is a vital industry issue. I understand that young graduates are not in a position to think idealistically, but journalists needs to act together to make sure that there is both an industry, and a union to support it, in years to come.

Contact: interns@londonfreelance.org

I hope this campaign does work, maybe then I can afford some dignity. After being told over and over again by lecturers and guest speakers from the industry that I'll have to work for free this whole thing is like a light at the end of a tunnel. However, for a campaign to work it needs sufficient support and I just don't think it's going to get it. I hope I'm very wrong but if someone told me they would clean my flat for a tenner and someone else came along and offered to do it for free (and a reference) there's no contest.
Nice early morning read though.

Thanks for your comment Martin. I'm sure The Chancer (and The Intern) will respond to it in due course.

As far as I'm (The Student) concerned, I think the proposals are so radical (in a good way) that it's often hard for the likes of myself and The Chancer, who have done copious amounts of work for free to get a foot in the door, to grasp.

I found your comment about "Even if you are well off enough to be able to work for nothing, you are undercutting someone else’s rate if you work for nothing" very interesting - it's not something I'd thought about. Again though, I'm sceptical because I think those who can work for free will do so, irrelevant if it it means someone else misses out - that's the nature of the media industry. Although I wish it wasn't so..

[sigh] I had a feeling this would happen. Fleet Street Blues publishes an unresearched piece making some poorly thought out accusations about what it assumes the NUJ is doing without bothering to find out what it is actually doing. Despite frequent attempts to correct what has been said, a number of people jump on the original post to give the NUJ a good kicking, also without bothering to check the facts or think what they are saying through. As the story spreads, increasingly wild theories are put forward about what the campaign means.

Credit though for publishing an alternative point of view from someone who does seem to have got a grasp of the facts. I'm really not trying to be rude or confrontational Chancer, but you've just got this one wrong. From the arguments you set out, you clearly have not read the NUJ or Skillset guidelines and you don't understand what this is all about. That may be because your conclusion gives away your basic position, which you set out in your last point. You appear to think that the only way to "get on" in journalism is to "work for free". Not work experience but work. And this is precisely the kind of thing the campaign aims to stop. Work is work and it should be paid. Even if you are well off enough to be able to work for nothing, you are undercutting someone else's rate if you work for nothing. Hopefully you don't think this is fair in order to "get on". And assuming that any commercial organisation does anything solely for your benefit and not theirs is, I'm afraid, pretty naive.