A Week As An Intern At SPA Confidential

As a budding young music journalist, I recently spent a week interning at the offices of a music website, I will refer to it only as The SpaCon, and am a little concerned about my experiences.

Upon entering the offices, which were nothing like the pictures I've seen of Google's offices as I was expecting, the editor greeted me. He said it was a delight to have supple young journalists, such as I, working in the office, which I thought was a good start.

My first job was to sweep the floor of The SpaCon (basically two desks and three computers, one of them working), which seemed to be covered in blood - but I didn't ask. What was a little bit more concerning was the amount of legal documents they had me shred after lunch, but again I didn't ask. After all, I was so excited to be working in a real newsroom!

My first writing job came on the first day. Apparently a band's frontman had said that their live show was "getting better all the time". The editor told me that this had to mean that their live show was currently "shithouse", and asked me to get a story about how bad the band were.

I went to call the band's manager and searched online for the context of the quotes. The editor laughed at me and told me that I can make it up. "Put them in any context you like!" he said.

On the Wednesday I had my first interview and was talking with a festival promoter about some of his rivals. I didn't get much out of the interview but the editor said I should call back and ask something 'off the record'. Then, he suggested, I ask another question straight after that which would be 'on the record' but the interviewee would still think we're off the record! I'm not sure it went the way it should have as the promoter ended up slagging another promoter... the editor said we'd have to use that quote.

The next day I was then sent to hide in the toilets of a major label and listen to conversations at the urinals. I was a little bit uncomfortable crouching on a toilet seat for 40 hours straight, I was only given three breakfast bars and and a six pack of Red Bull for the outing.

Now, I'm not sure if all music websites operate this way but if they do I can see why the internet is losing popularity so rapidly. I say, rip out your internet connection and huzzah to the return of swapping news over the back fence with your neighbour who will no longer be hidden away in a dark room masturbating to the glow of his Notebook.