Intern labor

I have not had a huge amount of experience trying to get media coverage, but I have been a part of a corporate scheme to portray themselves in a positive light for the media. I had an internship for Chevron Oronite (a small part of Chevron Corporation that makes the additives to the lubricaants) and week 2 of the internship I was told that my superior had signed me up to be part of "Intern Week." This seminar was 3 full days of speakers, meetings, and information overload about why our future at Chevron was important to the company. At the conclusion of the second day, they told us to dress in jeans the following day because we were going to be heading out on an "activity." Leaving the seminar that day I was on top of the world, looking forward to spending the next day getting paid, off on an adventure on Chevron's dime. And here's what happened...

We were all given blue Chevron logo'ed t-shirts, loaded onto buses, taken to the Oakland hills, and told that for the next 3 hours we would be taking part in a comunity outreach program in which we would shovel, plow, dig, and clear away an acre of brush that caused fire danger to the surrounding area. Now don't get me wrong, I am a huge supporter of community service and doing things for the good of the world and the community, but this was presented to us as an "adventure!" Once off the buses, we worked with our tools, all while being filmed and interviewed by the camera crews of the media stations that Chevron had informed of their Community Service Program. It must have been big news to these stations because later that evening I saw myself and many of the other interns on the 5 o'clock news being explained to the public as "all the wonderful things Chevron does to support it's local environment."