Are Your Looks (And Not Your Resume) Getting You In The Door?

I have a few really hot friends who wanted to get internships in magazine publishing—they didn't even want to be editors, they just wanted a magazine internship "for fun." They sent out cover letters and resumes, and within a week, all of them had scored internships with some of the best pubs in the business.

However, some of my less-stunning friends (including myself) have resumes that are a little more sparse when it comes to having served as interns at brand-name publications. And yet my hot friends with no experiencegot these awesome internships. Coincidence? I think not. Ugh...The media industry appears to be increasingly image-obsessed. The Devil Wears Prada depicted the offices of magazines as a toxic peer culture of snobbish beautiful women... and Lauren Conrad at Teen Vogue really doesn't help that stereotype.

I was walking by the New York Times building a few weeks ago and saw a young woman smoking a cigarette outside who was in a tight button down shirt and a short, poofy skirt that was so outrageous that it had to have been couture. Is this what the Times has come to--young staffers who probably have to spend as much time primping as they do reviewing the Elements of Style?

When I think of the glory days of newspaper and magazine publishing (before financial stress at the New York Times and Time Inc., and the new media), I think of newspaper editors reclining in their chairs with their feet on their desks while chain-smoking cigarettes, and sleep-deprived editors at magazines with tired eyes and a little too much stubble. Now that magazine editors have become near celebrities and newspaper editors bringing celebrity guests to the Washington Correspondents dinners, has the media lost the ruggedness that used to be so endearing?

Does it mean that today's college grads need to be hot if they want to get that prized editorial assistant job or internship? In the past, paying your dues used to mean grunt work. Is the prerequestite to today's grunt work a diet and a makeover? I'm hopeful. I'm cute and blonde, but I'm also very overweight, and I hope to get a job in the media. It just probably won't be for AnnaWintour.

Liz Funk, Contributing Writer, NYC

photo from here.