Second RIAS summer exchange program for US college students starts in Berlin
Fourteen U.S. college students and recent graduates heading into broadcast journalism spent the first week of their three-week summer exchange program on a busy tour of media, political and cultural stops in Berlin this past week. The program is designed to expand horizons and shed a light on the role that RIAS (Radio in American Sector) played during the Cold War as well as give the young American journalists a chance to meet German journalists and learn more about the industry in Germany
The students from 10 different universities and 10 states from Oklahoma to Washington state and from Louisiana and Wisconsin to Arizona, North Carolina and New York got a chance to meet German journalists such as Cherno Jobatey (ZDF), an anchor and reporter for ZDF public broadcasting network who told riveting stories about journalism and culture in Germany. They also met Andreas Rickmann, the head of growth at Bild.de’s online newspaper, as well as with Richard Meng, a former journalist and RIAS board member who offered illuminating insights about the future of journalism in Berlin in their talks. They also toured the Stasi prison, the remnants of the Berlin Wall at Bernauer Strasse, the Reichstag and met with students studying journalism and mass media from Berlin’s Free University during their first week in the German capital.
The American students will travel to Hamburg on Thursday and Friday to meet RIAS alumni and learn more about German public broadcasting at NDR as well as meet with journalists from Der Spiegel news magazine. They will also meet with Hamburg-area alumni for an informal get-together to celebrate the 4th of July holiday.
Taking part in the pioneering new program that aims to bring American students to Germany each summer to learn more about the country, the students will also get the chance to meet artist Kani Alavi — who was a driving force behind the creation of the East Side Gallery open-art art gallery painted on the east side of the Berlin Wall in the chaotic days right after the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989.
The students read extensively and watched films about Berlin, Germany and the Cold War to get ready for program even during their final exams period in the spring. Their extensive preparation helped them better understand stops to the Stasi museum, the Stasi prison, the RIAS building, the journalism department at the Free University of Berlin and the Springer Akademie, a finishing school for young journalists at one of the country’s leading publishing companies where they will meet young German journalists.
Trips to Leipzig, Potsdam, the Glienicker Bridge where Cold War spy swaps took place, a new Berlin spy museum, Deutsche Welle TV headquarters, the English-language KCRW radio station in Berlin, and to the broadcast media capital of Germany in Cologne are planned for the second and third week.
Here is a list of the U.S. students participating in the program:
- Jude Ahmed, Western Washington University
- Michelle Ailport, Arizona State University
- Juliana Amos, Queens College, North Carolina
- Jillian Carafa, Syracuse
- Jen Cartwright, Western Washington University
- Sinclaire Jacobs, University of Oklahoma
- Molly Kruse, University of Oklahoma
- Ariana Lasher, University of New Haven
- Michael Makowski, University of Wisconsin
- Christian Nunley, University of Oklahoma
- Kingsley-Reigne Pissang, University of Wisconsin
- Nick Scheffler, University of Minnesota
- Erin Snodgrass, Loyola, New Orleans, Louisiana
- Allison Walker, Emerson College, Massachusetts
