Newsman proud of his double identity

At a China-Africa media forum in Beijing this month, one of those attending, Justice Lee Adoboe, was happy to sit outside the conference room.

Adoboe, a journalist from Ghana, sat on a bench just outside the entrance forgoing the comforts enjoyed by those inside the conference room: the tables on which to write, drinks and sweets, or even simply being able to hear the speeches better.

Adoboe was one of 20 Ghanaian reporters invited by Chinese media partners to attend training sessions in Beijing and Guangzhou.

During his three-week stay in China, the senior correspondent of the Accra bureau of Xinhua News Agency was supposed to be relaxing and enjoying himself rather than chasing deadlines and headlines.

Having worked for a local newspaper as a business reporter, Adoboe joined Xinhua in Ghana in 2010. In his new post, Adoboe has broadened his scope from reporting on business, and he now reports on almost anything, from social events to politics.

"The bureau doesn't have a lot of people - only one bureau chief, two Ghana reporters and a Chinese editor," he says.

Adoboe says that since he began working for Xinhua his approach to his job has changed, as a lot of background information and explanations are needed in the stories he writes, given that those he is writing for are either Chinese readers or readers who could be anywhere in the world.

Adoboe is always on the move, and he calls himself "the legs and hands of the bureau".

"Most of my reports are filed in the field," he says.

In June 2012 - he still remembers it was a Saturday - he received a call from a friend who told him an aircraft had crashed, hitting a minivan. Further details were unknown.