I have always been an ardent reader of Ukhrul Times and I always relied on it for most of our local news. I really liked how the news were relatable as they were mostly local centred. So when a friend of mine sent me a notice that Ukhrul Times was looking for interns, I did not hesitate to apply for it. It has been an escalating journey ever since.
I was new to how digital news sites worked and had no idea how things were published online. But my worries weren’t for long. I was given a proper, step by step guide on how to work on WordPress. It was very intriguing; I learned how to edit, and I was taught the little factors to check, the rules to keep in mind before publishing news. I found it very interesting to see all these things for myself. With such detailed instructions, it wasn’t hard to get the hang of it.
I was very comfortable with the task I was assigned with: which was editing and running news on the site. I felt a strange sense of accomplishment every time a news was run, like I was actually a part of all these- contributing and publishing news in the big mass of media consuming audience, and the fact that there are people relying and reading what we publish was very fulfilling.
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To sum it up, in my very short time of internship, I was taught most of the basics I needed and I was able to grasp everything that was handed down to me in a very friendly, familial manner which did not seem demeaning or intimidating in any way. It was challenging at times, and we were required to step out of our comfort zone, come up with features and articles to keep our readers hooked to the news-site, besides the plain task of gathering and publishing news.
There were no specific working hours which I found a little cumbersome, but that is how news works. There is no saying when something important would happen, and we had to be on our guard all the time to get a wisp of anything newsworthy.
What we see and read on the news is only the surface of what goes within, there is so much more that happens before the actual presentation of news to the public. My respect for media persons increased twofold after seeing and experiencing them myself and realizing all the hard work that they put, and their importance. And I can say with certainty that in my short period of internship, not only have I learned the “know how” of media houses, but I also gained the confidence to step into an outside world, one beyond my own shell.
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