Hello there! My name is Maya Damit and I am a second year Communication Science student at the University of Amsterdam.
From the 5th of February to the 31st of May 2024, I had the privilege of interning RTL Telé Luxembourg.
RTL Telé Luxemburg is the main TV channel provider in Luxemburg, that provides the news, sports, ‘De Magazin’ and a lot of other different formats. It is part of RTL Group and located in Luxemburg.
As an Intern, I was part of the editorial department of the Television format ‘De Magazin’. This is a format producing socially relevant reports about life, people, and Luxemburg in general. The aspect I appreciated most, was the variety of tasks that I had to accomplish and the creative working environment that I got to work in with all the different and lovely people. Some days I was outside filming a report, the other I was writing an internet article and on other days I was writing my report and assembled it to a finished product that could be aired.
My tasks were very diverse. Creating a finished report that could be broadcasted involved a lot of effort, creativity, and time. Starting with finding the right interview partner to the report topic consisted of the first challenge. Calling people, setting up a meeting and briefing them what your report should be about to get the right information in the end is the first step. Making a reservation for a camera with a camera man was the next step then. The day of the shoot was always very exciting for me, because I felt a little pressure to make a good report, since it will be aired on television after. It was also mostly a lot of fun. This is one part that I really loved about this internship, that I did not spend every single day in the office in front of a computer. I got to meet new people, learn new things, and go places I did not know yet. Once, I was even on set of a new Luxemburgish series that cast some of the most famous actors in Luxemburg. The main character from ‘Capitani’ was also there which was exciting.
After a shoot, I returned to the office to cut out the best parts of the interview. Usually, one uses three to four interview cuts of a person in a report, which is sometimes hard because you need to filter out the best parts and exclude others. Writing the structure for the reports needs to be done in an interesting, storytelling, informative and simple way, like talking to another person. There is no need to write complex sentences since they will be spoken in the voice-over. This part was the most challenging for me because I have no prior writing skills or journalistic background. Nevertheless, I felt myself getting better from report to report, although in the end it still was not perfect.
The assembling of the report, doing the voice-over myself and having a finished product in the end was my favorite part. During the four months at RTL, I really enjoyed working together with creative and competent people, because in the end, making a report is teamwork with interview partners, with your camera man, and with your assembler. It is such a creative job, nevertheless, I am not sure if the journalistic part is completely my passion. Therefore, this internship was an incredible opportunity, so I will not exclude this kind of job from my mind, but I will try other internships as well and see what suits me best.