It should be obvious that when your duties as a photo intern have almost nothing to do with the company’s emphasis, the internship is a bullshit call for free labor. Just in case, let’s have a little fun examining the above listing (click it to enlarge).

First, you’d be a photo intern…for a promotion company. Your boss would most likely not be a photographer, editor, or even photo-literate. Red flag.

Second, the main appeal boils down to access…to the nightclub scene. Access to subjects is sometimes hard-won, like when you’re covering a lost tribe in the Amozon, but free admission to a bar in this case costs the rights to your photos, plus tuition if you are in fact a student. Red flag.

Third, no pay. Red red red red flag.

Fourth, the application process involves Facebook. Need I say more?

Flagging shady Craigslist ads is quickly becoming a hobby of mine. If you come across something like the screen grab above, feel free to let the flags fly.

The big draw of unpaid internships is experience – an internship with someone eminent in the field like Nachtwey would potentially elevate your skill set so that perhaps your jobs in the future will pay more. Another appeal is the networking potential – simply being in the right environment can lead to more numerous fruitful interactions. In any case the goal of an internship is usually a delayed reward, be it money or self-satisfaction.

On the other hand, mo’ money is better than no money. Aside from Nachtwey getting blasted for being all sorts of bad things I know he isn’t (DISCLAIMER: I have accepted J.N. as my personal Lord and Savior), comments on the original post on Jamie’s List and elsewhere such as the DuckRabbit blog pointed out that unpaid internships exclude potential applicants from the poorer end of the economic spectrum. Despite blogosphere testimony from photographers like Christopher Morris and David Burnett who extolled the benefits of working for free early in their careers, the unpaid intern does not occur in a vacuum. Meaning, even if it works out great for the intern, potentially there are plenty of other talented people who can’t afford to get a leg up by working for free for a while.

Basically, no one in any of the dozens of comments about this incident disagreed with the idea that getting paid is ideal. Unpaid internships are at best a compromise of cost versus opportunity, and at worst are the symptom of an imperfect industry where even the eminent professionals can’t afford to pay their interns. Since some people are completely averse to the idea of unpaid internships, you might benefit from listening closely to the people who might take or have taken a similar internship.

If you’re starting to consider an unpaid internship, keep some things in mind. First, make sure there is something legitimate being returned for your services. I saw an ad on Craigslist recently for an unpaid photography ‘intern’ that was supposed to produce photos for a “rapidly growing” surf company. Red flag number one: a photography internship in the retail industry. If your skill level as an intern exceeds that of your employers, you’re getting screwed. On the other hand, if you’ve talked with your potential employer and its obvious there’s a career’s worth of expertise to be tapped into, maybe you’ve got a keeper.

I am in fact expecting to start an unpaid internship next month. To my benefit I’ll have the extra time in my schedule anyway, and I live extremely frugally to boot. To assuage any lingering guilt over buying into a system that doesn’t always pay, I plan to blog the hell out of anything I learn, so that if some photographer is too busy flipping burgers to pay for gear they might still warm their hands on my fire every now and then. It’s a fairly limp conciliation, but at least it’s something. I’m optimistic.

On the slightly bright side, consider that colleges, workshops and graduate schools usually make you pay them.

It’s an unpaid internship; we just gave it a new name, but it’s a job that I sought out for the mutually-beneficial potential it has for both me and the organization. In general, I have mixed feelings about internships. I’ve had only one that I think helped me, and I’ve heard of far too many that turn talented young people into glorified slaves for little to no pay and irrelevant job experience. This one, on the other hand, will undoubtedly enhance my blogging and multimedia skills while also offering tremendous possibility for networking, increased exposure, and learning about the industry and issues of the Bay Area. How did I get this internship? I simply asked for it.

Backing up a bit, I met David Cohn, Kara Andrade and the Spot.us crew at a fundraiser/party the night before the May 1 journalism conference I attended. Believe me, networking is a lot easier with drinking, Indian food and dancing involved! I was already interested in the Spot.us crowdfunding model, and I’ve been realizing more and more the increased demand for blogging, web, and multimedia abilities in the journalism job market. I’ve also been feeling a little lost in the way of meeting people, discovering new places and learning about important issues to write about, so I asked Kara and David after if Spot.us needed an intern. Two weeks and a handful of followup emails later, the symbiotic relationship began. Of course I need some way to supplement my lack of income, so I’m actively seeking paid employment as well. But in the meantime, I’m going to learn every thing I can from this internship and hopefully it will launch me–and Meridian–to new heights.

To get a feel for my new gig, check out a Spot.us blog post I wrote today about an environmental activist from Oakland who is doing every thing she can to cut down her plastic consumption and track it on her blog, fakeplasticfish.com. I interviewed her on BlogTalkRadio, which is an online radio show that records interviews and archives them into podcasts. I learned that I need to work on my radio voice and loose the commentary, but hey, at least I’m learning. Check back to read more about my experience with Spot.us.