The staff at Mother Jones knows it couldn’t live without our interns, who fact-check our stories, blog, research, and generally work their butts off. But you, dear reader, may not know how cool these folks are. So, via our friends at the Village Voice, here’s a sampling, in an article entitled, “You Just Graduated from Journalism School, What Were You Thinking” [emphasis mine]:
“I grew up with doom and gloom,” counters Sonja Sharp, 23, who was paralyzed at eight and, despite being told she would never walk again, is now ambulatory. “So you can doom-and-gloom until you’re blue in the face, and I’ll yawn.” She knows things are “apocalyptic” now, but believes journalism will emerge all the stronger for it. “I decided when I was nine—and in a wheelchair—that I would write,” she says. “I still want to be a journalist because I’m stubborn, and dropping in on total strangers and having them open their lives to you is addictive, and I’m not a ‘just say no’ person.”
Sharp turned down an education beat at a Los Angeles weekly in favor of Columbia, and started in the newspaper concentration. “Journalism marries the two things in the world I’m actually good at—being nosy and writing for money,” she says. After graduating, Sharp landed a six-month internship at Mother Jones. “I don’t know where I’ll be next year, but I’ll be somewhere,” she says, adding that uncertainty is fine “when you’re young and you don’t mind living hand-to-mouth.”
Sonja puts all of our woe-is-me impulses to shame, and her cohorts: interns Ben Buchwalter, Andy Kroll, Stephen Robert Morse, and fellows Steve Aquino, Taylor Wiles, Nikki Gloudeman, and Sam Baldwin are just as great. Follow those links to learn more about them and read their clips. Learn more about our awesome (and paid!) fellowship program here.
Clara Jeffery is Co-Editor of Mother Jones. You can learn more about her here and follow her on Twitter at @clarajeffery.
