It’s day four of my internship, and I finally got assigned something to do! Loretta, a Ghanaian intern at the New Crusading Guide, grabs a copy of the Daily Guide, sits down next to me, and tells me that we are going to write a story. She starts flipping through the Daily Guide, points to a story and says, “ We are going to do this one.” I am confused. What does she mean “we are going to do this one”? I brought my laptop, so she instructs me to type what she says. She starts reading the article to me word for word. I stop her and ask someone in the office if this is what we are supposed to be doing. He confirms and explains that all we need to do is summarize the story we chose from the Daily Guide. I have never worked for a newspaper before, but this does not seem legal. I email Leslie, explain what I was asked to do, and ask her if this is customary for Ghanaian newspapers. I didn’t get Leslie’s response until I was home.

I continued to do what I was told to do even though it felt so so wrong. I didn’t want to be rude and tell them I wasn’t comfortable plagiarizing an article from a competing newspaper because they actually didn’t think that this was plagiarizing. At the New Crusading Guide, they genuinely think that this is a perfectly acceptable way to write stories. After all, I am just an intern working at a newspaper in their country. Who knows, the rules may be different here.

I reworded what Loretta told me to type, and I offered suggestions in the nicest way possible. I did not want to make her feel stupid. We lifted quotes and copied paragraph structure. I was reluctant to put my name on the article, for I cannot take any credit for this story. Loretta put my name first, but I quickly told her to put my name second, hoping that this would make me feel better about straight up plagiarizing. It didn’t work. When it was time to email “our story” to the editor I got the nervous feeling in my stomach like I had done something wrong. I sent the editor the email and anxiously waited for Loretta and I to get in trouble. However, he did not say anything and our story was published the next day.

At work on Monday, they happily handed me my first published story with a big smile on their faces. I had to fake my excitement. As an American who has learned about plagiarism since elementary school, I know that what I did is not acceptable or even legal. In the US that is. If they ask me to write a story like this again, I will have to respectfully decline.

As I am finishing up this blog post, while sitting on this little black pleather couch, in my small, hot office, I can’t help but notice the Ghanaian intern sitting to my left is “writing a story.” Oh boy. Only in Ghana!