Internship at well-known newspaper in Paris: ‘I got to interview a minister’
Zoé is a second-year bachelor student at LUC, where she is studying Culture, History & Society. Last summer, she did an internship at Le Parisien newspaper in Paris.
Why did you choose to do an internship?
Zoé: ‘In France, where I come from, it is common to do an internship in high school. Because of covid, it didn't work out for me, so I decided to do the internship at university after all.’
Why did you want to do an internship at Le Parisien?
‘I am interested in journalism and someone in my network works at Le Parisien. It was practical to do my internship there, because it was easier to get an internship. Also, my grandmother lives in Paris, so I had a place to stay.’
What work did you do during your internship?
‘I worked in different departments of the newspaper: social, politics and culture. What I did was different in each department. In the political department, I went to meetings and interviews with the journalists. In the cultural department, I wrote articles. I wrote a lot of reviews about TV shows and Netflix series. On some days, I watched Netflix all day. It was fun to do that for a while because I could watch TV shows before they were actually broadcast on TV.’
What other topics have you written articles about?
‘I wrote an article on exercise books given to French children during the summer holidays. Since a few years, it has also been available to students going to university to be prepared before they start their bachelor. Many articles had already been published on the subject. While writing the article, I had to find a perspective that had not yet been covered in the other articles. It was the first time I went through the complete process of being a journalist. I had to do research on the topic and arrange the interviews. The final article was published a few weeks after I finished my internship. I was very happy with that.’
Is there a moment from your internship that has stayed with you?
‘I got to go to the national parliament with the journalist from the political department. It was crazy to see the prime minister in real life. I had the chance to be at an interview with the energy minister. When the journalist finished, I asked if I could also ask a few questions, which I was allowed to do. I asked her how they planned to check whether the locations would actually follow their rules. She answered the same way she answered questions of other journalists, which made me feel super confident.’
Do you also want to become a journalist now?
‘I do not know yet if I want to become a journalist eventually, although I am currently looking at the options to follow a master's degree in journalism.’
Would you recommend other students to do an internship?
‘I would definitely recommend it, even if you only have a small idea of a job you would like to do, because you can see what it is like in practice. Before I started my internship, I thought I would like the culture department the most, but now I know that I don't like this department as much as the other departments. Even if you don't end up liking it, at least you know that after your internship.’
Text: Annemieke van Es