Herald Sun intern debacle is a hard lesson in newsroom culture

Ms. Mole, well done. Your accurate characterisation of the antithesis of a typical Herald Sun reader demonstrates how well you know the audience of the paper, as well as tipping your hat to the journalists and editors that work there for walking the talk. The original article was a satirical take on neo-liberalism and the self-indulgence of youth, am I correct?

The responses to this article have been amazing. Commentators, from hardened journos and editors to academics have managed to out princess the intern princess.

There seems to have been some solidarity behind the view that journos can be sexist etc because they witness tragedies? Cobblers

“Trying to determine the difference between black humour and something else is difficult for us all and impossible for many.” – and yet you were able to write that with a straight face.

I’m not a journalist, have very little time for them really, believe their stories often have fewer facts than the ads they sit next to.

But having read the article (by the student) it yet again goes to show the arrogance of university students and their belief that everyone is an idiot and doesn’t know as much as they do – wow two weeks work experience, you should be editor by now. Uni students really need to get over themselves and no-one more than this little precious package. What the hell were you expecting unicorns and rainbows?
While many of the issues stated should not be tolerated in any workplace not just a newsroom, the one thing that caught my attention and made me shake my head on disbelief at the stupidity of this person was the comment ‘Men were also continuously and unnecessarily sexist, waiting for me to walk through doors and leave the elevator before them.’ Last time I checked princess this is polite manners. I am sick of copping abuse from women because of opening doors, or offering my seat on public transport, and it’s people like this that make you reluctant to do so.

I do however, find it a tad ironic that should she have written the same article but about a different company it probably would have been included in the paper as an opinion piece.

If the student author of the article never enters the realm of journalism then it’s a win for the Australian reader.

As written the Herald Sun newsroom sounds like any workplace I know and if anything sounds like it has some pretty funny people working there.

Not every article is life changing, politically important or even newsworthy.

The people that write the stories are often as flawed as the people they’re writing about and I think that instead of filling journalism students heads full of kumbaya sentiment they would do well to understand that green left weekly handholding isn’t of much commerical value.

Obviously the article was written by someone who missed the lecture ‘harden up 101’

I have a new found respect for the Herald Sun based on the article as written.

To the intern – welcome to the working world lovey.

This is exactly why it’s so important to do work experience. Students should do it in their first year at uni, rather than at the end. I know too many people who wasted three years of their life studying jouralism, only to find out during work experience that it’s not for them and move into PR.

why did they move to PR, Scoop? because it’s a growth profession that pays a lot more?

Wow…

I was going to write a well thought through and logical response to this anonymous intern’s article and then I realised that it just wasn’t worth the time.

What a brat. I’ve worked at HWT and although like every workplace it has its negatives, it also has a lot of positives.

Unfair and cowardly writing.

So it is OK for a newsroom to demean people because journalists are special people with hard jobs? PULEASE!

It seems the industry most in need of good PR advice is journalism. Journalists rate as more untrustworthy than politicians and rarely get respect from the public – because they operate as a guild who doesn’t respect outsiders – including the people they report on.

Maybe we need a Gruen challenge to PR companies: come up with a strategy that would make Australians trust and respect journalists.

Or is that too hard given how there are members of the journalistic profession who are better at putting their feet in their mouth than Julia Gillard.

Congrats. She’s brave and wrote what she encountered. I worked for them and in my opinion, had an incompetant alcoholic boss. This was in another News Ltd office. We had to work in asbestos office and constantly was told what to do to suit the story.

I’ve worked in the Herald and felt as if everyone is in love with themselves and they name credit.

Well I guess Alexandra Wake is a journalist. But I doubt that she’s spent much time in newsrooms. Nor any other workplaces?
And of course the Hun newsroomn is full of conversations that make light of the workl. Because the work is fundamentally opposed to human nature. (Few people want to spend their day talking to people who don’t want to talk.)
It surprises no one that they are bigots and boyish.

“Men were also continuously and unnecessarily
sexist, waiting for me to walk through doors
and leave the elevator before them”

oh please.

Actually Herald, Alex Wake has been a journalist for years. I reckon after working at the ABC (she’s still there actually) and training journalists all over the world she may have a faint idea of what she’s talking about.

Jethro Dull – couldn’t have said it better.

I really wonder how she made it through school, university and life with such idealism in tact – only to have it shattered in a terrible work place where men hold doors for you.

It hasn’t been” common politeness” to hold a door for women since these dinosaurs were children. This behaviour would – I am certain – be mainly designed to check out her arse.

you have chosen not to publish my comment on this story.Could you please give me some feedback,so I may be better informed.With respect Tom O’Connor

Further to my contribution to this News Ltd intern debate, could I refere you to The Gardian story in the UK,where an intern at another Murdoch publication was asked to strip naked and pose with another naked staff member, in a re creation of the Prince Harry sensation.Could you please look again at Ms Burdens account of life inside the Murdoch media?

the worst of perth your comments are infantile and puerile, displaying your inexperience and perhaps your own leering proclivities

as you grow up you will learn that all men don’t spend their day seeking opportunities to look at women’s arses

in the part of the work world where the serious things happen, any man failing to permit where convenient a woman to enter a room or exit a a lift first would be derided for his sense of self-importance

manners and grace do not equate to sexism

..judging by the extensive airing you elect to give graffiti penises on your blog, Worst of Perth, i’d say you harbour the strongest desire to arse-check any woman in front of you. So please don’t ascribe the same tendency to the rest of the male gender.

You should generally know what to expect before entering any industry. If you wanted to become a divorce lawyer, you wouldn’t expect warmth and fuzzies, right? And given journalism is one of the least ethical industries from almost any perspective, that should’ve been obvious to our precious intern. (Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past 300 years)

There are some in this thread who appear, without irony, to be suggesting that journalists are equipped with manners and politeness. Aparently they have never met one.

The intern’s equation of chivalrous ettiquette to sexism is appauling. You missed your’e opportunity for bra burning sweetpea.