Climbing to New Heights at Voice of America

By Dean’s Intern Emily Lytle at Voice of America

As my fellow interns and I sat at our desks writing headlines and editing video, one of our supervisors announced: “We’re going to the roof today!” I wasn’t completely shocked when he said this because there is always so much going on, and so many different people coming in and out of the Media Lab. But, it was still pretty mind-blowing when one of the camera men came by and, indeed, took us up to the roof of the Voice of America building. We saw the “bubble” that reporters stand in to get a real-life backdrop of the Capitol building – which our supervisor said is the best angle in the city, in all seriousness.

After taking a very necessary photoshoot in front of this million-dollar shot, we returned to the Media Lab, which is a small office with at a desk for each of the regions we create videos for: Asia, America, Africa and World. Every morning, we arrive and receive an assignment from our supervisor, then we start searching the wire services for the top five headlines in that region. I found this part of my day to be simultaneously the most challenging and rewarding. Not only do you have to prioritize the most important stories, but you must find unrestricted video clips that match those headlines. I’ve learned that journalism, especially when you are producing digital content on deadline, requires confidence and executive decision-making.

One more thing that I have really enjoyed learning (and had no idea would be a possibility) is on-camera presentation. For our America video, we add a stand-up of an anchor reading the stories. I have had the opportunity to practice this on-camera “talent” role a few times, and I’ve found that I really enjoy it! You can check out one video for which I wrote the headlines, edited the video and anchored here: https://youtu.be/-cUna-GBF3k.