RIAS alumni group hears former NBC anchor Brokaw talk about Berlin Wall fall
RIAS alumni group hears former NBC anchor Brokaw talk about Berlin Wall fall scoops
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ormer NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw talked to RIAS Berlin alumni from the United States about the scoop of his lifetime in Berlin — the good fortune that had him in East Berlin and West Berlin on the night the Berlin Wall fell 30 years ago on November 9, 1989. Brokaw was one of a dozen guest speakers on a special one-week RIAS Berlin Commission alumni program featuring U.S. alumni of the binational exchange program from 1994 through 2008. “It was a night when the world changed right before our eyes,”
“The Berlin was so much uglier and so much more oppressive when you saw it in person.
He was the only U.S. TV journalist on the scene when the Wall opened — two days after he arrived on a hunch about all the turmoil was going on in East Germany. “I owned that story. That was the end of the Soviet empire. And we got lucky. I’d like to tell you I knew the Wall would come down. Unfortunately, I cannot. I didn’t know. But it did come down on my watch and I’ll never forget it.”
Brokaw said that the situation was in flux all day as East German guards were trying to get West Germans off the Wall celebrating with water cannon. “We just threw out the script. I had written this whole broadcast and I said to the producer ‘stay with me, I’m going to have to ad-lib everything here.’… I couldn’t hear myself think. I just keep thinking right before we went on air the old astronaut’s slogan.. just don’t screw this up. this is a big deal.'” He called it the “story of humankind”.
The American alumni also got the chance to learn more about life in Communist East Germany before the Wall fell from German alumni Anja Heyde, a journalist at ZDF television who grew up in a small town near what was then Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz). They also listened to riveting stories from Robert Zoellick, who was one of the key U.S. negotiators in the “2+4 talks” that led to German reunification just 11 months after the Wall fell.
They also took a tour of Bernauer Strasse where some of the most dramatic moments of the Wall’s construction in 1961 took place as well as learning more about the scores of tunnels built beneath the Wall to help East Germans escape. They will also meet with editors at Deutsche Welle, journalist at ZDF television and N-TV television as well as one of the organisers of the open-air art murals on the Berlin Wall called the East Side Gallery, Kani Alavi. The Americans will also take part in ceremonies with Berlin Mayor Michael Mueller and at Saturday’s giant anniversary celebrations at the Brandenburg Gate where tens of thousands of people are expected.
Here is a list of the participants: Lee Anderson, Terry Anzur, Pam Benson, Deborah Block, Tom Brislin, Buzz Conovon, Christine Dobbyn, Scott Fralick, Marilyn Geewax, Chas Henry, Bob Jamieson, Larry Levin, Lane Luckie, Marguerite Moritz, Henry Mulak, Hillary Powell, Adam Reiss, Ross Reynolds, Scott Saloway, Joe Sampson, Stacey Samuel, Andrew Schneider, Bill Skane, Melissa Steinhofer, Yami Virgin, Joel Waldinger, Bryan Weakland, Stephanie Wolf, Tiffany Zeno
October 26, 2019New RIAS Berlin Commission program in USA for German students
The RIAS Berlin Commission is proud to announce the start of a new fellowship program in the United States for Germans who are studying journalism, attending journalism schools or have been working for media outlets in Germany while attending university. The inaugural three-week program will take place from March 22, 2020 to April 10, 2020.
The project for German students in the United States follows the successful run of a reciprocal program for U.S. students in Germany in 2018 and 2019.
The new RIAS program for German students includes a four-day introduction with the entire group of up to 12 German students to the United States in New York, a four-day visit to Washington DC and then two weeks on an individual basis at U.S. colleges and universities across the country, where the fellows will work together and watch American university students put together campus radio and TV news shows. In New York and Washington the group will meet American journalists at their TV and radio stations as well as take part in meetings at leading think tanks such as Brookings and the Pew Institute. They will also meet some political leaders.
The two weeks at U.S. colleges and universities from about March 29 to April 10 will be spent paired with American college students, some of whom have taken part in a RIAS summer exchange program for students to Germany. They will attend some journalism and college classes in the United States with their American host student and will be involved with the production of daily radio or TV news shows that are put together by the college stations — often part of the NPR or PBS public broadcasting network.
Participants receive round trip air travel from their home city to the United States, ground and air travel in and across the United States, and hotel accommodations during the program. Some meals are also provided during the program. Participants will leave Germany no later than March 22, 2020 and return no sooner than on April 11, 2020.
As this is a partially funded program supported bei ERP funds, each participant will be required to contribute €500 to help cover the cost of the program.
The project is supported by the Transatlantic Program of the Federal Republic of Germany, funded by the European Recovery Program (ERP) of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi).
Click here to download the application. Please send your completed application forms and required materials in one PDF or Word file to Isabell Hoffmann hoffmann@darkseagreen-dog-940501.hostingersite.com.
For more information, please write or call the RIAS Berlin Commission office in Berlin: info@darkseagreen-dog-940501.hostingersite.com. Telephone: 030 8503 6971.
October 25, 2019Rhine/Main chapter in Mainz meets retired U.S. general for talk on Syria, Europe
Retired U.S. General Ben Hodges spent a recent evening meeting with the Rhine-Main alumni chapter of the Berlin RIAS Commission to talk about a number of transatlantic issues. Hodges, the former commander of the U.S. army in Europe, spent several hours candidly answering questions from Rhine-Main alumni chapter members Anna-Maria Schuck (ZDF), Zlatin Nikov (SR) and Kristina Gründken (ZDF) at “Weinhaus Wilhelmi” in the heart of Mainz on October 10.
“Whenever I can I’ll meet with young journalists such as you guys since I think it’s important that you get an insight in the military world for a better understanding,” Hodges told the group. There were many questions about the role of the U.S. military in Germany, Europe and beyond as well as Northern Syria and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region. Because NATO was at the center of his work as U.S. commander in Europe, Hodges talked about its lamentably shrinking role during the current U.S. administration and his frustration in seeing some of his efforts to bolster the alliance weakening.
“Having Ben Hodges with us was a unique experience for all of us,” said Anna-Maria Schuck, the Rhine-Main chapter leader who organised the evening. “We were very lucky he took the time to give us an extraordinary insight in the military world that is often not easily accessible for journalists like us.”
In other alumni news, the Washington DC and New York chapters met in October with RIAS fellows from Germany for two lively evenings on October 11 and October 18. There were about 25 alumni in each city who met with the 12 German fellows.
There will also be a large alumni gathering in Berlin from November 5 to November 11 — 28 American alumni from programs all the way back to the late 1990s will be in Berlin to attend the program and report on the anniversary celebrations linked to the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. There will be a reciprocal program for German alumni in Washington DC in late October 2020.
There are also efforts afoot to create a new California/West Coast alumni chapter. Henry Mulak in San Francisco is trying to get a West Coast chapter going. Please write him if you would like to join:
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October 24, 2019
German journalists spend 3 weeks on RIAS fellowship in USA
Eleven journalists and one artist from Germany just finished a busy three-week RIAS Berlin Commission fellowship in the United States. The journalists from commercial broadcasting companies as well as commercial broadcasters from across Germany were together in Washington DC for one week, then New York City for one week and then spent the final week of their fellowships on their own at small station networks across the United States.
Those “stations week” internships were at stations from Seattle to South Carolina, from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, from Cincinnati to Denver, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Bloomington, Indiana, and from Tyler, Texas to San Antonio, Texas,
It was one of the busiest programs ever with some of the highlights in Washington DC including a visit to Jeff Mason of Reuters at the White House press center, a talk with Fox News Managing Editor Bill Sammon, a meeting with German Ambassador Emily Haber, talks with former Congressmen Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D) and Charlie Dent (R-Penn), a talk with Peter Rough of the Hudson Institute, visits to WUSA9 anchor and RIAS alumni Larry Miller, and a visit to the ZDF office with Britta Jäger.
The highlights during the New York week included a briefing in Trenton with New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a meeting with CBS news president Susan Zirinsky, a talk with CNN’s long-time U.N. correspondent Richard Roth, a visit to Bloomberg for talks with Michael Lysak and RIAS alumni Viviana Hurtado, a visit to the New York Times with The Daily’s Clare Toeniskoetter (also a RIAS alumni), a visit to WNBC-TV, NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo with Michael Gargulio, Adam Reiss, Tiffany Zeno, Bryan Weakland and Edgar Zunigo, a visit to Vice and a talk with Hendrik Hitzel, Yahoo Finance and a talk with Scott Saloway (RIAS alumni) and a talk with Germany’s U.N. ambassador Christoph Heusgen.
Included in the group was Berlin artist Kani Alavi. The German-Iranian artist painted one of the iconic murals on the Berlin Wall and is one of the driving forces behind the East Side Gallery who has often given U.S. groups a tour of the East Side Gallery and his studio. The 1992 RIAS treaty included a provision inviting journalists, academics and artists to take part in RIAS exchange programs. Alavi also painted a segment of the Berlin Wall that now stands outside the U.N. building in New York and Alavi saw his artwork in New York for the first time during the RIAS exchange program.
The group was also accompanied at times by RIAS board members Richard Meng and Helena Kane Finn. There were also spirited alumni get-togethers in Washington DC with 35 participants and in New York with 35 participants as well.
Here is a list of the October 2019 participants:
- Gesine Dornblueth, Deutschlandradio, Berlin
- Leon Ginzel, Radio MDR Thueringen, DPA Audio Berlin
- Laura Goudkamp, BR radio and TV, Munich
- Isabelle Körner, RTL and n-tv, Cologne
- Heike Mohr, radioeins and RBB Fritz, Potsdam
- Volker Petersen, n-tv online, Berlin
- Viktoria Reith, Deutschlandfunk, Cologne
- Simon Schuetz, Bild.de, Berlin
- Andreas Mitzkus, RTL TV, Cologne
- Felix Wessel, WDR Radio and Deutschlandfunk, Cologne
- Bastian Harting, Deutsche Welle
- Kani Alavi, artist, founder of the East Side Gallery
