John Stossel takes apart and rips up the federal government's concern about unpaid internships.
I have an intern at Fox Business News, and I'm getting immediate advantages from her work all the time. I've had interns my whole career and gotten lots of immediate advantage from them.
Occasionally, I've been impeded - but the better interns did the research that made my work possible. I'd asked my TV bosses to pay for research help, but they said, "You think we're made of money?"
So I asked colleges if students wanted internships. Many did, and from then on I got much of my best help from unpaid college students.
I remember my internship in January of 1983. I asked the Baltimore Skipjacks if they needed any help in the front office during the three weeks before spring semester started.
They did, so I got to meet some Baltimore sports icons. I even had dinner with the Famous Chicken (pizza with the rest of the staff).
I got to add stats information to the program fans buy. I found old memorabilia from the Clippers teams of the 1960s and 70s, including a record of the theme song.
I learned from the general manager that sports is not the business to go into. I reminded him of that 10 years later, when he was announcing for a minor league baseball team.
Internships are good. Unless they're with the government. They've got enough people working there, so they don't need the help.
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