When I heard I’d be spending my time as an intern in Ghana with the Joy Sports team, I was over the moon. Due to the professional nature of the University of Oregon’s sports programs, it is difficult to even get your foot in the door when it comes to covering one of their teams. While there was certainly an adjustment period after first arriving, I quickly figured out which sports were most important to Ghanaians as well as which sports I would largely be expected to cover during my time there.
Initially, there wasn’t much for me to cover due to the AFCON or Africa Cup of Nations tournament that was being played. It is only played every two years and was dominating almost every headline over my first two weeks at Joy Sports. While previous UO interns had covered soccer during their time with Joy, I was upfront and honest with them about my lack of understanding of the sport. It felt wrong for me to act like I could cover the tournament with anywhere near the degree of professionalism the Ghanaian public had come to expect from the Joy Sports team. On the bright side, I soon realized I was the resident NBA expert of the office, which is something I never would’ve expected before arriving. While I knew the sports I would be covering wouldn’t necessarily be the ones Ghanaians love to read about, they would be the ones I enjoy reporting on the most. I was able to draft up NBA Free Agency breakdowns and even write up player profiles on recently crowned NBA Champions Pascal Siakam and Serge Ibaka, two African born players. I would never have dreamed that I’d be considered an expert on the NBA prior to arrival, but I certainly enjoyed being the go-to source for all NBA news.
In addition to covering the NBA, I’ve also been asked to report on other sports I am not as familiar with. Just this past week, I was asked to record a segment on the FINA World Aquatics Championships happening in South Korea. While I’m not at all familiar with competitive swimming, it was fun to be able to record a segment and have it featured on the Friday afternoon “Locker Room” show on Joy FM. Moving forward over the last two weeks of my internship, I’ve been told I’ll have the opportunity to record segments about the NBA and other sports I’m more comfortable with because my initial segment was well received. While it has taken me a little while to gain the trust of the rest of the sports team, I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to work more with the AFCON games having wrapped up recently. Joining the team during such a stressful time was a great chance for me to gain some valuable insight on what “crunch time” looks like in a sports writing newsroom. Stories had to be pushed out fast if the Joy Sports team wanted to stay ahead of their competitors, and the pace at which my coworkers pumped out stories was admirable to behold.
I hope that over the final two weeks of my time here I’ll have the opportunity to have a little more of my work published on the site, and also to have some more air time on shows like Locker Room. I’ve enjoyed every opportunity I’ve had to get more involved here, and I hope that by gaining the trust of my coworkers they feel a bit more comfortable with handing stories off to the other interns and I. I can’t wait to see what opportunities this final couple of weeks bring!
***For those of you who are interested in listening, here is a link to the Locker Room show I was featured on in Podcast form: https://www.myjoyonline.com/ghana-news/audio.php?af_ch_token=Joy
My segment on the FINA Aquatics World Championships begins at the 12:30 minute mark of the July 26th edition of the show.