AP Cancels Internship Program

[Jeanfromfillmore]

AP Cancels Internship Program
By Don Irvine | December 15, 2010

The Associated Press feeling the effects of the recession and a downturn in business will not be offering internships in 2011.
From the New York Observer
The Associated Press has canceled their internship programs for 2011. AP Director of Media Relations Paul Colford wrote in an e-mail:
The Associated Press is putting all of its internship programs on a one-year hiatus, as well as our attendance at journalism recruitment conventions, as we focus our financial resources on our essential core businesses. We will resume an internship program in 2012, which will have the same focus on diversity, and also resume our attendance at recruitment conventions.
The internship program, which cost $600,000-$800,000 a year to run, paid more than 20 young journalists union scale and launched many into professional reporting careers, according to the Maynard Institute.
Those were some very well paying internships and there is no guarantee that they will be revived at these levesl in the future as the AP’s overall business is not exactly thriving and as more newspapers go under shrinks their base even more.
On the other hand the demise of the program may lead to fewer biased reporters which wouldn’t be so bad after all.
http://www.aim.org/don-irvine-blog/a...nship-program/