Abhorrent: Want A Journalism Job? Pay Up

This…disgusts us.

A charity auction site is selling off a 2-3 month internship at the Huffington Post. The current bid is $13,000.

“Jumpstart Your Career in the Blogsphere With An Eye Opening Internship at The Huffington Post in New York or Washington,” the ad reads. “Includes: a two-three month internship at The Huffington Post in NYC or D.C. Must be at least 18 years old. NYC is the main office and D.C. is the political office. Winner can choose which location they would like.”

Geez, for that much money you think they’d offer housing.

If the winning bidder lives in Connecticut, s/he’ll have to pay sales tax on the internship.

The money will go not to the Huffington Post or to Arianna herself, but to the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. And HuffPo defended their decision to offer the internship through a spokesperson. “It was for a good cause,” he told AdAge. And it’s just one intern slot out of roughly 25 HuffPo will host this summer, he said.

Still.

I’m having a hard time processing this. I can’t believe it’s even legal, though we wrote to CharityBuzz and found that it isn’t against their TOS.

Sigh.

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.