In March 2023 I started my internship at the journalistic news company Buzzard. The company is a start-up based in Berlin. My bosses created the company to make a platform that brings together diverse media voices and opinions. Despite being a young company, Buzzard already offers various media services, including an app, a podcast, and projects for school children. Their news app is unique, providing brief introductions to important topics and presenting different viewpoints from politicians, scientists, journalists etc. Buzzard aims to be impartial and transparent. The main objective is to fuel democratic discourse and combat filter bubbles and media bias.
My work at Buzzard was split into two phases. In the first couple of months, I was responsible for writing journalistic texts that were later published in our news application. I spent my days writing the “perspective of the day” on relevant topics, usually writing around six texts per day. When I started working at nine my coworker had already selected the topics that we were going to write about. He had also selected the different texts that I was going to read. This selection could include publications from a variety of sources, ranging from conservative blogs to investigative works. My tasks included understanding the authors’ viewpoints, summarizing them concisely, and sometimes translating texts from international news outlets. It was important to disclose the authors’ identities, political leanings, and the medium of the publication.
In the second half of my internship, I took responsibility for the podcast, final editing, and the researching of authors. This involved curating audio sequences, writing podcast scripts and using editing software. I also classified journalists and media reports and familiarized myself with various media outlets, learning about journalism and international politics.
The internship taught me a lot on both a personal and a professional level. I can clearly say now that I love being a journalist. You will learn something new every day, and I loved constantly informing myself about new topics. On the other hand, I also learned that the job entails a lot of computer work and stress to publish your articles on time. On a personal level, I can conclude that I want to continue working in the news world. I nonetheless want to find a job that is more interactive and closer to the action and the people.
Another aspect that was very educational for me was the people that I worked with. Each and every one of my coworkers stood behind the idea of Buzzard, and you could feel that the team was doing their work with their hearts. During lunch, we always ended up discussing the political topics that were relevant that day, and it was so interesting to hear everyone’s opinions. In particular, my two bosses were very inspirational to me. They had an idea of how they wanted to improve the world and just did it. Both of them stand behind the idea to this day. They are two open-minded people that were always eager to learn from the people around them and to constantly improve themselves. They showed me that they valued my opinion and actively asked for it. This in particular I find very rare for a boss-intern relationship.
Overall, I can recommend my internship and would advise all German-speaking communication science students interested in journalism to apply.