I was talking about paid internship with a fellow photographer recently… we were quite astounded to find an annouce on Lightstalker where James Nachtwey (yes, the very one) was looking for intern. Unpaid, yet demanding. Ok, Nachtwey is Natchwey and I could have jumped on it if I was working around NY… but can’t he propose anything?!

If Laforet, an individual, can do this to fund the payment of his interns,
then why can’t groups like Magnum or VII do the same?

Hubris, greed or both?

Now I know all the familiar Bush-era arguments
that slave labor in the publishing industry is “market-driven”
or that there is an obscenely large pool of rich kids in New York
who are willing to work for free, etc.

But unpaid internships are unpaid internships,
and slave labor is slave labor.

That kind of logic isn’t going to fly as well anymore in a Post-Bush era.