NHK's INTERNATIONAL TELEVISION NEWS

My internship was performed at the US-based International Political and Social Section broadcast offices of NHK, Japan Broadcasting Corporation, the Japanese national public television broadcast network. A major network, NHK is perhaps more comparable to Britain's BBC than the American PBS. My duties there were to assist with research analysis for the Chief Correspondent Producer, who was my immediate supervisor. In this position I assisted the Chief Correspondent Producer and his staff with both statistical and textual research. Major tasks included transcription and translation of press conferences and interviews, as well as research and organizational data analysis. The length of the internship was 200 hours.

The first and overwhelming lesson I learned in this internship is that speed is of the essence in television news. The familiar image of a television newsroom, as presented in movies and TV entertainment shows, is of a bustle of activity, with people working under constant deadline pressure. If anything, this is an understatement of the reality! In the NHK news operation there was never a second to be lost. The atmosphere of the news operation is one of controlled chaos. This is as much true when working on a background or analysis piece as for breaking news, because the clock is always running, and items have to be fit into a slot when it is available. At the same time, accuracy is essential

ents in detail, but it was necessary to read or skim a study with a clear grasp of its overall meaning and thrust. MPP 603 proved invaluable in providing the required skills for this task. MPP 602/605, Applied Economic Analysis of Public Policy I and II, deals with the economic principles that underlay public policy choices -- ranging from the behavior of firms to national budgeting procedures and constraints, and the nature of economic policy options. While the International Political and Social Section of NHK does not deal exclusively with economic developments, this naturally makes up a large part of the daily flow of news. The Japanese TV news audience needs to have a context for American and other international economic news, which MPP 602/605 helped to provide. In particular, during my internship, NHK was involved in describing the US budgeting process and the state of the American economy, comparing the slowdown in the US economy to that of the Japanese economy in the 1990s. MPP 651, American Democratic Culture, deals with the origins and development of American political institutions and the contemporary American political culture. This course was particularly important in working for a Japanese news outlet. The Ja

Category: Personal - N