I was looking for a chance to experience a reporter’s work since I had decided to work as a part of the mass media in the future. Therefore, when I was introduced the Summer Work Experience Scheme, I went the extra mile and applied for working as an assistant to a reporter at once.
I was the assistant to Mr. Yeung, a reporter working in a newspaper publishing house. On the first day, Mr. Yeung briefly explained my job. I would be collecting data for Mr. Yeung’s reports and contact others for him, and he would teach me to write news reports when he was free. I thought these were easy tasks and I would be able to cope with them without any difficulties but in reality it was totally different.
Data collection for reports was more complicated than I thought. It was not only about searching for data but also arranging and analyzing it. On the second day, I was required to sort out the message of the three-hour speech given by a government official. It was a hard task to me because I was not familiar with the government’s structure. At the end of the day, Mr. Yeung could not teach me a lot since I had spent all day on dealing with my immense workload.
However, the fifth day was not as monotonous as the previous ones. After I had got back to the office, I received a phone call. I was told that a corpse was discovered in the park opposite to a public housing estate. I was shocked and could not come to myself until Mr. Yeung tapped me on the shoulder. “Are you fine?” he asked. After I told him about the phone call, Mr. Yeung decided to go to the park alone. He did not want to bring me along with him since he believed that I would be overwhelmed by the horrible scene. However, I wanted to join him so badly because I believed that it would be a precious experience for me. He changed his mind as I begged him so sincerely.
The corpse was not covered by the police when we arrived at the criminal scene. The corpse, which was well hidden in the bush, had a wound on his throat, showing that the male corpse was most likely to be killed by throat-cutting. I couldn’t figure out anything else due to my lack of knowledge and fear. Mr. Yeung, however, analyzed the remains calmly. “It is strange. The remains of the man should be bleeding a lot if his throat was cut. However, there was no blood splashing on the ground. Perhaps the murderer hid him after stopping him from bleeding?” I couldn’t believe that Mr. Yeung could keep so calm when he faced a corpse. After he finished noting down suspicious features of the remains, he asked me to take a photo f the corpse. When I took out my camera, I found that my hands were shivering. After all I could not calm myself down. I could do nothing but to leave the job to Mr. Yeung.
On the last day, Mr. Yeung asked me to write a mock report for the accident on Friday. After he had finished reading it, he gave me a lot of useful advice. But more importantly, he reminded me that I was far from being competent enough. “Your work is good among the Form 5 students but still there is much room for improvement as a reporter. Not only does a reporter need good writing skills but also the calmness and ability to do analysis.
I have learned a lot and gained lots of precious experiences. But my greatest gain in the week is that I have recognized more about my deficiency. I am sure that my knowledge and calmness are inadequate to support me to be a real reporter or take up other roles in the mass media. Therefore, I would learn harder in the future to prepare for my future career.