RIAS group from USA on tour to Brussels, Cologne, Erfurt and Berlin
Ten American broadcast journalists hit the ground running on the first week of their two-week RIAS Berlin Commission fellowship. The whirlwind program began with two days of briefings from senior officials from the European Union and NATO along with meetings with journalists from Politico such as David Herszenhorn, the Deutsche Welle studio in Brussels with journalists and RIAS alumni Catherine Martens, Max Hoffmann and Terri Schulz — and at the ARD TV studio in Brussels with bureau chief and RIAS alumni Markus Preiss.
The next stop was a two-hour train ride across Belgium to Cologne — the TV media capital of Germany on the banks of the Rhine River. The Americans made a visit to nearby Bonn to the studios of Phoenix TV for talks with anchor Michael Kolz Phoenix staffers Cornelia Gerhard and Iris Ollech. They also visited the headquarters of RTL and NTV — Germany’s most successful commercial TV network and the country’s all-news station. Executive director Tanit Koch gave the Americans an introduction into RTL/NTV and was joined by journalists/RIAS alumni Marcel Gyzrb, Gesa Eberl and Isabelle Körner along with Nadja Kriewald, David Whigham, Martin Schulte and Malte Baumberger. There was a large RIAS alumni gathering in a Cologne restaurant as well with about 25 alumni from the Cologne area — some coming from as far away as Essen and Duesseldorf.
The Americans then took high-speed trains hitting speeds of up to 300 kilometres per hour across Germany to the eastern city of Erfurt, where they met the head of the Thuringia state’s office for the protection of the constitution Stephan J. Kramer for interesting talks on the state of the far right in Germany and the upcoming election in the eastern state. They also met Mario Voigt at the state assembly building for a riveting talk about the political and economic situation in the state nearly 30 years after the Berlin Wall fell. Voigt, who studied in Virginia and follows the U.S. political landscape closely, even took time for the Americans even though it was a public holiday in the state — Kindertag (Kids Day).
They finished the week with another high-speed train ride to Berlin, where they met German-Iranian artist Kani Alavi for a talk and tour of the East Side Gallery — and his iconic painting from 1990 on the 1.3-kilometer long stretch of the Berlin Wall that artists from around the world have immortalised with their paintings. They also got the chance to see a spectacular multi-media lightshow beamed onto the walls of the parliament buildings in Berlin.
The second week will begin in Berlin with a visit to an ethnic neighbourhood in Berlin and a Hertha Berlin soccer game at Olympic stadium. The second week features visits to Deutsche Welle, RBB radio, the Reichstag, the Foreign Ministry, the American Jewish Committee, the Clean Energy Wire, the Stasi prison in Hohenschönhausen, the Berlin Wall memorial at Bernauer Strasse and the U.S. Embassy.
Here is a list of the participants:
- Perla Lopez Baray, WFMZ TV, Allentown, Pennsylvania
- Jordyn Siemens, KTVZ TV, Bend, Oregon
- Ryan Delaney, St. Louis Public Radio, Missouri
- Jessica Moskowitz, CNN, New York
- Mounia Touzani, Fox TV, New York
- Erik Runge, WGN, Chicago
- Emanuel Secci, CBS News, New York
- David Wagner, KLST TV, San Angelo, Texas
- Monica Quintero, Fox KPEJ, Odessa, Texas
- Alex Presha, NBC7, San Diego, California
