Magazine editor says internships rule

In 2007 Michelle Coursey graduated from Wintec with a Diploma of Journalism  and high hopes of a career  in the magazine industry.

Six years later, she is the editor of popular  woman’s magazine, New Idea, after working  for other publications including NZ Woman’s Weekly and Girlfriend.

This week, she was on the Grad Panel along with Hazel Squair, who now runs Melbourne’s fashion week, and musician Luke Thompson, at Wintec’s Spark International Festival of Media, Arts and Design and offered useful advice to those entering the workforce in the near future.

Coursey puts getting her first job down to hard work, and a bunch of internship experience in the industry before graduating.

She says that while  internships may be a bit unpopular with students because the work is largely unpaid,  she feels they helped her dramatically.

“They really built the basis for my career,” she said.

Coursey spent more than eight weeks interning at the Waikato Times, The New Zealand Herald, The Herald on Sunday and The Listener while she studied.

She admits that while interning she had to do the unpopular jobs including vox pops, reporting parades, and “the weird stuff”, such as a story on a squid.

“All the other reporters think, sweet there’s a newbie here, we’ll give them the crap stuff to do.”

But despite this, on graduation and heading into her career she had a vast portfolio of published work  under her belt, and feels there is no doubt the internships paid off.

Her passion for writing means she is a spelling and punctuation nerd and admits it is the ultimate turn off when she reads a cover letter with mistakes all through it.

Her advice to those finishing their studies is to get in the industry and work for free if you have to.

“Journalism and the media is all about working hard and taking any opportunities that come your way.”