Left to right: Yuko Tokuda, Megan Schwerdt from University of Kansas, Alison Peabody, Greg Dusic, Kim Zimmer, Windy Borman and Aaron Rorick. In the background is Lake Bosumtwe, located in Ashanti Region, about 50 kilometers south of Kumasi. the lake is sacred in Ashanti culture. Photo: Leslie Steeves

There are many similarities between Ghana and the United States, but the differences really stand out. Of course, the differences are why we were there.

In summer 2002, I had the opportunity to join five other University of Oregon students who spent five weeks in Ghana as part of the Ghana Summer Institute. The institute traces its roots back to 1996, when J-school Professor Leslie Steeves and University of Kansas Professor Adrienne Rivers were on Fulbrights together at the University of Ghana at Legon. After her experiences in Ghana, Rivers decided to start a small summer overseas journalism program for students at the University of Kansas, involving a course on the media in Ghana and an internship with a media outlet.

Rivers and Steeves stayed in touch, and in 2001, Steeves began working with the UO Office of International Programs to make the opportunity available to Oregon students as well. That spring the UO Foreign Study Committee approved the program on an experimental basis, and that summer two Oregon students participated. In 2002 the University of Kansas, home of the program since Rivers created it, sent one student. Oregon sent six, including me.

For us, the institute provided both a valuable learning experience and a valuable life experience. Windy Borman, ’03, another of Oregon’s participants, noticed the differences in the simple details of daily life. “Going to the bank to exchange traveler’s checks could take more than an hour, and things may not get fixed for more than a week; kind of the mañana philosophy times ten,” she remembers. “And the tone that people use for asking a question and making a statement are reversed, so the statements sounded unsure and the questions sounded aggressive.”

Kim Zimmer, ’03, noted that while buildings might be half built, housing developments empty and half the roads unpaved, it was amazing to see a country transforming itself on a daily basis.

Steeves would like to see every Oregon student study abroad. She believes that immersion in another culture “can have such a transformative effect.” Still, despite the UO’s tradition of excellence in overseas study (the UO offers nearly 100 programs), students are sometimes concerned that the costs of studying abroad are too prohibitive or that the courses won’t be relevant to their major. For journalism students, a major-specific summer program like the one in Ghana is the answer to these concerns. While the UO has programs that require the student to pay only their regular UO tuition, the costs for this program are even lower because of the shorter stay (five weeks in our case). The prospect of fulfilling requirements for a major is appealing to many students. The Ghana program also offers internships that provide practical experience in journalism while they further the students’ understanding of the society they are visiting.

Yuko Tokuda, ’03, who interned at GTV, Ghana’s government-owned television station, says she learned about the culture by watching people at work at the station and asking questions. She also made a promotional video for a program called “Talking Point.” Her 30-second promotion was on the air for a few days.
“Even though the foundation of the newsroom was the same as ones in the U.S., the ways that they produce the news are quite different,” she says. “I remember I was asked to produce a package about people’s reactions to new increases in water and electricity prices, then one editor said that I could not do it because of pressures from the government. In a way, the newsroom worked as an advertisement for government policies.”

Greg Dusic, ’03, who interned at Radio Univers, the University of Ghana’s radio station and the first independent radio station in the country, faced the challenges of learning both a new approach to work and a different style of writing.

“At work, we would write our stories on 11 by 17-inch pieces of brown paper and then hand them in to the program manager for editing,” Dusic recalls. “It took a little while to get used to the different style of writing that Ghanaians use. It is more similar to British English than American English but has a distinctly Ghanaian sound.”

For Borman, her internship at Ad Vantage Productions, an affiliate of Lintas, was the highlight of her trip. Lintas is the oldest and most recognized advertising firm in Ghana, and its clients include Guinness and the Ghana Social Marketing Foundation. Although Borman arrived during the busiest production time for Lintas and Ad Vantage, rather than sticking her in a corner out of the way, the director went out of his way to involve her on all levels of production for the various projects. 

“As a result, I was able to be a production assistant on three commercial shoots for Key Soap and Key Powder,” Borman says. “Like any good PA, I wore several hats; my duties involved everything from delivering lunch to directing traffic, watching for continuity and yelling “Quiet on the set!”

Zimmer was also delighted with her internship experience. Zimmer says, “I jumped at the opportunity to work with a non-governmental organization concerned with HIV/AIDS and malaria prevention. The internship turned out to be an incredible experience.”

Like Tokuda, Alison Peabody, ’02, interned at GTV, but she was assigned to the production block rather than the newsroom.
“I was paired with Mr. Solomon Ntim and I worked on his show, Hobby Time,” Peabody says. “I also got to sit in on the taping of two other GTV programs, one of which was done on location and the other was done in the studio. On location I did a whole lot of observing. I had no specific duties, except to hold the host’s cell phone while we were recording. Mr. Ntim did ask my advice at least once on every shoot and even had me direct one segment on the first taping.”

For my own internship experience, I was assigned to the newsroom at TV3, the first network to break GTV’s monopoly on television in Ghana. I’d never worked in a major newsroom before, so I can only compare the work environment at TV3 to what I’ve seen in television and movies. Except for the videoediting race each afternoon, the newsroom at TV3 was very laid-back. Incidentally, just about everything but the traffic in Ghana can be described as laid back. People came and went as they pleased and generally kept whatever hours they wanted, so long as they got to their assignments and made deadline. I know this to be the rule in American newsrooms as well, but I got the impression that a newsroom in a growing metropolis like Accra, the nation’s capital, would be much…busier. I simply did not expect journalists in Ghana to have so much free time.

This is not to say that I feel my time at TV3 News was wasted. On the contrary, I gained valuable field experience covering news events, just as I would as a reporter in the United States. Separated from my American classmates and teachers, I was immersed in Ghanaian life in a way that would not have been possible if it weren’t for my internship.

Fewer UO students study abroad in Africa than any other destination because of a combination of cost, lack of knowledge and even reluctance based on often unfounded stereotypes. While the UO has greatly increased its coursework on Africa in recent years, students still tend to know less about Africa than any other region of the world.

Steeves is working with the UO Office of International Programs as well as contacts in Ghana and Kansas to find ways to lower costs further and improve the academic aspects of the program to maximize their relevance for Oregon journalism students.

Steeves says she hopes to have an improved program in place by winter 2004. “An internship in a very different culture is almost always a transformational experience that results in life-long changes in perspective” Steeves says. “It’s exciting that we can offer this opportunity to our journalism students.”