Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fishterns

When we sent out the call for Fishbowl interns a few weeks ago, we hoped we’d attract some top-notch talent willing to work thankless hours for no money. Ambitious, weren’t we? Indeed. We were as surprised as you are that we actually got all that, and more. Flushed with pride and counting our lucky stars, we proudly present our five fishy and fabulous interns, who we have dubbed “The Fishterns” because we know they love it. They are smart, funny, savvy, blog-tastic, and aficionados of ’80s hair metal bands, as they should be. Between them they read every magazine, blog, and newspaper known to man. We are proud to welcome them to the Fishbowl and are thrilled to have them join our swimmy little school. They are, without further ado:

Fritz Brantley is a humble Arkansan with a love of media gossip, the free press, and sensible sneakers. His sensibilities are an appealing mix of the best things about highbrow (natural fibers, tact) and lowbrow (Velveeta, earnest friendship, moxie). His dream Harper’s Roundtable/dinner party consists of Missy Elliott, Julia Sugarbaker, Nerve contributor Paul Festa, and Bruce LaBruce. Less abstractly, he’s currently a junior at Brown, edits the entertainment supplement to the Brown Daily Herald, and is currently an intern at the East Bay Express, a NewTimes alt-weekly. He identifies a great deal with Josh of “The Last Days Of Disco,” and considers his dream job, in all seriousness, to be a talking head on Best Week Ever, or mogul. The landform, that is.

Jamie Frevele is an occasional freelancer for New York Newsday and writes and performs sketch comedy in NYC. Afraid of having a crush on actual people (not to mention lacking the lack of time to meet said people), Jamie chooses to devote her love to blue-eyed newsmen and the issues they cover so sincerely (Ed. Yo,playa, step off!). During the day, Jamie temps at a comically Dickensian (read: computer-less) office as a proofeader, and apologizes in advance for any eyestrain-and-copyediting delirium-induced postings. She does lots of Googling. Jamie actually came up with the term “Fishtern,” and we’re proud to be appropriating her work so soon.

Sahar Habibi is a straight up Midwestern girl from Kansas but has spent the last two years running around Europe. After finishing her degree at the University of Kansas, she headed to London to get my master’s in international politics. She loved studying, working, travelling, and meeting new people so much that she decided to extend her European excursion by taking a job at a think tank in Madrid, six months ago. Now that she’s had her fill of paella and the academic sphere, she’s decided to move to New York to have a go at the world of media and journalism. We’re pretty sure she’s much, much smarter than us.

Annie Karni is a 22-year-old half-Israeli/half-Baltimorean who has settled in New York for the foreseeable future. She graduated from Haverford College in 2004, and after a brief stint as Assistant Editor at Not For Tourists Guidebooks, she moved on to work at the Fredrica S. Friedman & Co. Literary Agency. Hobbies include: blogging, walking across the Williamsburg Bridge, picnicking on the Great Lawn, and working on the Sunday crossword puzzle, an obsession she developed at an early age thanks to her grandparents. Her favorite novel is “Anna Karenina” and she is currently reading Philip Roth’s “American Pastoral.” She wishes that Anthony Lane would write a novel. That would totally make her day. Annie blogs at karnivale.blogspot.com.

Maureen Miller is a senior at Yale University. She is a former intern for NBC’s “The Chris Matthews Show” and political consulting firm julianmulvey.com, and has contributed to Gawker, DCist, and medical journals Clinical Biochemistry and Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (no, really). At Yale, she is a former editor of the Yale Herald and “the nation’s oldest college tabloid” Rumpus, a winner of the Hersey Prize in journalism, and the author of a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the aforementioned publications in her younger and more vulnerable years. In addition to an impressive slate of media blogs, Maureen is also a regular reader of The Shins Will Change Your Life (indierock4eva.blogspot.com). And PostSecret. She also boasts an impressive array of newsroom crushes. Her fave 80′s hair metal band is Warrant. “Cherry Pie” is sweet.

Voila, the Fishterns! Enjoy.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.