By NYU Staff

Amir Bibawy sat at his desk, surrounded by computer monitors and TV production equipment for 10 weeks, working the phones and finalizing scripts for the afternoon segment of Reuters Insider, a new television program offered to financial clients of Thomson Reuters.  He made sure not to be mistaken for an intern.

As a summer intern for Reuters, “intern” was just a technical term for Bibawy who, at 31, already had 10 years of journalism experience under his belt.  But skilled interns like Bibawy are increasing in number, as the weak economy has forced more experienced journalists into these non-traditional roles.  Still, Bibawy admits he could have been worse off.

Looking for a leg up in the job market, Bibawy attended Columbia University’s Graduate Journalism School this year; but even with his professional experience and Master’s degree, he was unable to convince at least nine internship programs to take him.  “Newspapers were cutting back drastically [for the summer],” the Egyptian-born Bibawy says. “I didn’t get any of those internships.”

Then he got the call that mattered.

“When I got the Reuters internship I decided to take advantage of it since I wanted to break into financial newswires,” he says. “It was a very prestigious internship and it paid handsomely.”

The internship wasn’t without its challenges.  At first, Bibawy’s reporting skills were not put to work; instead, his responsibilities were limited to booking guests and answering calls for producers.  “There’s always the sense that they are not taking advantage of the full potential of the intern, particularly due to the short duration of the internship,” he said.

And he is not alone.  After five years of teaching Spanish in private schools, Amy Ambatielos decided to follow her dream of becoming a journalist and entered a two-year broadcast journalism program at age 29.  But as a broadcast intern for KNBC, a Los-Angeles based NBC affiliate, she found herself logging interviews and dubbing tapes—a common entry point in an industry that prides itself on starting newcomers, regardless of age and experience, at the bottom. “I was older than the producer I was interning for,” says Ambatielos. “It felt a bit defeating to be working for younger people.”

Still, senior media professionals and career advisors alike say that it is even more important for seasoned interns to be best in class, since they are often perceived as having potential egos and lofty expectations.

“It’s very important to be a good intern, by doing what you’re asked to do with a smile,” Kelli Grant, senior consumer reporter for SmartMoney.com, said in an interview.   Grant says the challenge is that interns expect to be doing “fantastic tasks”—like writing important articles or editing—right away.  But Grant, who parlayed a number of internships into her current position, says the “crawl before you walk” philosophy is a reality that interns just have to endure until they build up trust.

Bibawy and Ambatielos persevered, keeping in mind the intangible rewards—expanded networks and new skills development—of an unpaid or low-paying internship, as well as the opportunity it gave them to update old skills.

And if that’s not enough to convince you to take an internship mid-career, some media internships can pay as well as full-time media jobs in some markets.  According to Salary.com, a human resource data company that aggregates salary statistics online, an entry-level reporter position in New York pays an average $33,800 to $41,000 a year. Thomson Reuters and Dow Jones Newswires pay its interns approximately $700 a week, or $36,400 a year, excluding overtime.

Still, in this environment of shrinking newsrooms and high expectations, there’s often the sense that there is little time for people who need a little more time to get up to speed, says Reggie Stuart, a journalist and recruiter for The McClatchy Company.  This could be a good thing for experienced workers.  Ultimately, it was networking, professionalism, and an ability to navigate the workplace—skills that often come with age and experience—that helped Bibawy and Ambatielos quickly leap ahead of their younger peers.

Bibawy landed a production assistant job at Reuters.  And six years after her first internship, Ambatielos is enjoying her work as a Producer for CNNMoney.com.  While internships were pivotal in landing full-time work, both admit the difficulty of having to face this economy, especially as an older intern. ”Truthfully, I am so glad not to be an intern at this point in my life,” says Ambatielos.