Unordinary Intern
February 14, 2005 11:50 AM | General
February 14, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Ernest Hunter is certainly not your regular everyday intern.
West Virginia University’s senior-to-be defensive end is spending this semester doing an internship with the Mountaineer Sports Network. And while students getting internships is nothing out of the ordinary, Hunter’s internship with MSN is.
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| Ernest Hunter assists cameraman Murph Tinsley during West Virginia's recent home basketball game against Pitt.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
That’s because the Burke, Va., resident, still has football eligibility remaining and that, according to WVU Director of Communications Michael Fragale, makes Ernest’s internship of keen interest to the Mountaineer compliance department headed up by Brad Cox.
“There was some concern that we do everything properly,” Fragale admitted.
Hunter is required to work 144 hours over the course of the semester to satisfy his internship requirements. That equates into roughly about 20 hours worth of work each week for Hunter, who must also balance that with his class schedule and football winter workouts. What it ultimately means for Ernest is fewer Friday and Saturday nights with the buddies.
“I don’t mind it,” he says. “If I don’t learn that sometimes you’re not going to have your Saturdays and sometimes you’re not going to have the free time you want … if I don’t learn that now I’m never going to learn it and I don’t think I would be able to function in the working world.”
Hunter, a communications major, was always interested in television and noticed MSN personnel around practice a lot. That led to a discussion with Sports Information Director Shelly Poe and Fragale about the possibility of doing an internship through the communication department’s ‘Field of Experience’ program.
“He approached me one day and he said he was interested in broadcasting and that he needed to do an internship that would give him good, hands-on experience,” said Fragale. “He asked me, ‘Do you think you can help me? I told him, ‘Well, if you want to learn about TV and you want to learn about broadcasting then I think this is exactly what you need.’”
“I thought the best way to understand how this all works is to go behind the scenes,” Hunter said. “The people at the production studio are involved with what goes on behind the scenes and what makes things run smoothly.
“I thought to myself if I’m going to do this then I’m going to do something that actually has something to do with communications, be fun, be interesting and something that I can take a vested interest in and MSN was right there,” he said.
Because Hunter’s background is in communication and not broadcast journalism, he says he’s learned a great deal in the short time he’s been involved with MSN.
“He’s pretty new to television so we’re just trying to show him the ins and outs right now in the daily operations,” said MSN producer/director Anthony Lewis, who oversees Ernest’s day-to-day activities. “He’s not a journalism student so he doesn’t have experience going out and shooting his own packages. At MSN we shoot it, we cut it and we write it so he’s getting a complete look at how a piece is put together.”
Until he gets to that point, Ernest’s time is spent logging tapes, being a part of the studio show and the ensuing editing process, working on the basketball highlight video and running the clock and score for live women’s basketball games. He has sat in on interviews with men’s basketball coach John Beilein for the television show Mountaineer Jammin’ and has been spending some evenings taking the satellite feed for away basketball games.
“He’s jumped in full force,” said Fragale.
“We’re not a TV station and we’re not a journalism school: we’re a production house that deals with a lot of different things,” said Lewis. “The good thing about Ernest being over here is that he gets to see everything from sending commercials reels to our affiliates to actually coming out and seeing a live broadcast from a mobile TV truck.”
Hunter admits his eyes are now wide open to the many varied possibilities of having a career in television.
“Everyday I come (the Coliseum) or to the production studio I’m always learning something new,” he said. “I’m always involved with something hands-on.”
That’s pleasing to Andrea Weber, visiting assistant professor who oversees Ernest’s internship for the communications department. Weber admits that most of the 60 internships they currently sponsor are either through the communications department or in the fields of public relations, marking or event planning.
“If my students are interested in that aspect then they need to go out and learn it on their own through internships because we don’t teach that,” noted Weber, who says the com curriculum pertains to the science of communicating.
Hunter admits that he’s learning a lot: “I didn’t realize how easy the video editing process was and how difficult it can be at the same time,” he said. “I was sitting down with (television productions producer/director) Murph Tinsley and he made it look easy. He showed me something he put together for the freshmen coming into school and it was really good; it would make me want to come here and I’m already here.”
Having always been on the other side of the camera, Hunter says his work at MSN has given him a new-found appreciation for how tough it can be sometimes to interview athletes and coaches.
“I understand that now a little better and how they’re leading up to the answers that they’re trying to get,” he said.
Weber says that in many ways internships are a process of elimination for students. Some thrive in their setting and wind up going into the profession while others move on to different vocations.
“We have had very different experiences,” she said. “Some students have had life-changing experiences with their internships and some aren’t nearly as motivated.”
Hunter says he falls into the ‘life-changing experience’ category.
“I definitely think I would like to be involved with television now that I have knowledge and I plan on gaining more knowledge as time goes on,” he said.
“(Interns) really have no clue about what all goes on,” said Fragale. “Even though Ernest is around this playing football, I think it has hit him in the face a little bit. But that’s what internships are all about.”
