Given the lack of paid internships and the overwhelming amount of aspiring magazine editors, Ed can pretty much bet that every whippersnapper has had at least one unpaid internship. In fact, sometimes it seems that media wouldn't be able to survive without a bevvy of unpaid interns to transcribe, research, report, write, photocopy, and sometimes make a coffee run.
But it turns out unpaid internships may be illegal. According to the NYT, "when the jobs are mostly drudgery, regulators say, it is clearly illegal not to pay interns." States like California and Oregon have already begun fining employers for violating the law. (Ed gave his own two cents on the topic in an Ask Ed years ago). But now the federal government plans on cracking down on what many people consider to be 21st century slave labor. Even internships with college credit are not exempt.
