My Experience at the Hindustan Times

Internship: An Experience

After an anxious wait of 4 days, I along with my colleague Sreeram climbed the portals of the awe-inspiring 17 floor building of the Hindustan Times (HT), the premier newspaper, at Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi. We were given the reference of Ms. Ruchira Hoon, the senior reporter but she put us in contact with Ms. Ruchika, the Human Resource (HR) officer of the HT, who after interviewing us assigned us the departments for internship.

The next day, I met  Harshvardhan Rathore, my guide at the multimedia department on the first floor of the building. He was very courteous. But I was impressed by the head of the department, Raja Sharma Rymbai. He instructed me of the basic task of the multimedia department and that I would have to suggest various news or human interest stories for making three-minute videos to be uploaded on the HT website. That I would be trained under senior reporters in scripting the story,  handling the equipments, shooting the video, the manner and method of interviewing and finally filing the story for the video.

On the first day, I had to scan through the newspapers, surf the Internet for breaking stories, and as and when a topic or theme strikes, look for the details in the Google, the search engine. I suggested more than 20 topics, of which some of them were approved by Mr. Rymbai. Then I had to script the story, give a ‘header’ and ‘kicker’ (lead), which had to be approved, by Mr. Rymbai himself. Once, approved, I was was supposed to arrange for the shoot. And once the arrangements done, I was given the camera and the cab to go to the site for the shoot.

In my 25 days of internship, I could go with the senior reporters to interview Mr. Masanori Fukuoka, a Japanese Arts collector at Vadehra Arts Gallery in Lajpatnagar, Mr. Anna Hazare, who had sat on an indefinite fast at Jantar Mantar, the Wills Lifestyle Fashion Week at Pragati Maidan, the Indigenous Northeast Festival at IGNCA, the Bihu Festival by the Assam Association, etc.

The most interesting, challenging and at the same time learning experience was going by myself with the equipments, in the cab assigned by the HT to the site of my story interest and doing the shoot and interview single-handedly. The following videos based on my stories are uploaded on the HT website.

1.      The Origin and Growth of Udupi Vegetarians Hotels

2.      The History and Future of Noida

3.      Delhi Braces to Beat the Heat

4.      Delhi Christians Observe Good Friday

5.      Women Safety and Importance of Self-Defence

6.      Candle Light Victory March at India Gate

Also I could learn the Podcasting, working with FCP video-editing, handling of the camera and equipments and dealing with people in a corporate atmosphere. And above all I got the opportunity of observing the buzz of activities going on in a newspaper industry: such as division of departments, division of labour, the fluctuation of sometimes the work light and at other times heavy and taxing, etc. By my work and relationship, I could elicit trust and regard for me. On two occasions I was even allowed to take the equipments home for the overnight shoot.

I am very grateful to Dr. John Edappilly, the dean and Mr. A.J. Philip, the faculty at NISCORT for having arranged my internship at the HT and providing me this life-time experience.