Today was definitely a day of firsts. I began my very first media internship, and it occurred at Radio Univers located on the campus of the University of Ghana. Or shall I say I was scheduled to begin. Before I touch on that, let me talk about another first. For the first time since I arrived in Ghana, I experienced the torrential rain that falls from the heavens here. While I waited on an Uber with Francis, we mentioned to each other how the appearance of the sky insinuated rain was on the horizon. Internally, I was well aware that this wouldn’t bode well for me, so I ran back into the house to retrieve my rain jacket. (Because the newsroom and studio is a couple of miles from the house, I walk to campus every day.) Then the heavens opened up.

I got fairly wet just walking from the Uber to the newsroom, newsroom back to Uber, Uber to the studio, studio back to the newsroom. Follow? If not, don’t worry. Just know I got wet. Now back to my regularly scheduled internship.

After sitting in the lobby of the studio for 3 ½ hours, I was escorted to the newsroom by a gentleman named Eric. There he introduced me to the editor, deputy editor and some of the staff. There, I sat quietly and observed the landscape, taking note of everything I saw.

The newsroom is about the size of an oversized shipping container. In it sits 12 workstations. Each workstation is outfitted with two Dell computers and two chairs. Each workstation is denoted by the discipline it covers. For example, news that occurs locally falls under the General News desk. At the Akan desk, journalists report on
The editor sits at the front of the newsroom and wears many hats, from editing stories to confirming sources have been called and interviews arranged to ensure that stories are ready to go for the midday broadcast.

A live broadcast of the day’s shows was heard from a speaker that set in the back of the newsroom. Each journalist was busy with a task at hand. Some were seen researching news while others were writing and editing their news stories. There was a separate group of journalists who were wearing headphones. I immediately recognized that they were editing audio files, probably from interviews they had previously conducted. It looked as though the editing software they were using is Adobe Premiere.

After sitting in the newsroom for several hours, my boss finally arrived. I learned he was late because he attended a symposium that took place earlier that morning, thus the six-hour delay in his arrival. After introducing himself, he led me back to the studio where we convened in his office. We talked about my former and current education, work experiences, aspirations and what we could possibly create during my time here based on the aforementioned aspects of my life.

The day ended on him suggesting that I develop a proposal for my own show, two more firsts, that describes the international student’s experience studying abroad at the University of Ghana. As I walked away in awe of what just transpired, I couldn’t help but smile that it took us a total of 45 minutes, from introduction to suggestion, to discuss everything.

Here’s a toast to time being of the essence.