When she studied at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences (FJSC) at the University of Bucharest, Elena believed that journalists were well paid and the opportunity to meet people was everywhere. “I imagined that we would come to college and be taught, that we would talk like breaking news anchors, that we would go to television studios, that we would meet people,” she says. – It was not like that at all.

The first paid job was her own internship, which Olena (we use her name, because she does not want to conflict with former employers) started in the fall of 2020 together with the college at a newly opened news site. The team was young, and not all of them were with journalists, and the editor-in-chief did not explain anything to them and treated them inappropriately, says Olena. “I came to him with the news — of course I didn’t know how to write it — and he looked at me like that and said, ‘You come to me with this mess, do you think I’m a fool? !”. And he started yelling at me and forcing me to do all this.”

Elena stayed only one week in the internship, which was paid 1,000 lei per month under an employment contract and which, as she remembers, was part-time. The 2018 law stipulates that internships in Romania are paid at least 50% of the total minimum basic salary in the country (in 2020 it was 2,230 lei).

When she wanted to quit, her boss was indifferent, even though the girl was crying. “He looked me in the eye like that and said, ‘pack your bags and go.’ I cried there, he didn’t care. And I left.”

For some time, Olena did not look for a job. He got his first “official” job in August 2022 as a video editor in a press group whose portfolio includes various magazines. After a month of internship, they drew up an employment contract with her, which specified the minimum wage for the economy, although Olena received 2,000 lei net per month (the minimum net wage was 1,524 lei in 2022).

Read in full at Panorama.ro