11 German journalists start three-week RIAS fall program fellowship to the USA

Damla Hekimoglu is an anchorwoman for Germany’s leading news program Tagesschau and tagesschau24 at German public broadcaster ARD. With 22,000 employees, ARD is one of the world’s largest broadcast organizations and Germany’s market leader in news. She also working as an investigative reporter for the WDR network in Cologne. A native of the Rhineland, she has also worked for PHOENIX and BBC World News. She will be doing her station week at WGN TV in Chicago, Illinois.

Etienne Bell has been an anchor and reporter for the all-news commercialNTV news network since 2014. A native Rhinelander, Bell also anchors NTV’s “Startup Magazin”. He has anchored a weekly business podcast “Brichta&Bell – Business Simple and Fast” since 2019. Bell also anchors for various multi-platform offers by NTV, such as the Alexa Skill for Amazon Echo. Bell studied “Media Communication and Journalism”. He has been working in journalism since 2006 and also has experience working for commercial and public radio broadcasting.

Nadja Bobrova is a senior editor for the German public broadcaster ARD. She works for the daily morning show, called “ARD MorgenMagazin”. Bobrova has Russian roots as she was born in Moscow and speaks three languages fluently: Russian, German and English. She has been focusing especially on assisting ARD’s coverage of the war in Ukraine and the situation in Russia. She has also worked in the past for German newspapers, such as the Westfälische Rundschau, as well as for commercial networks NTV and RTL. Bobrova also studied abroad in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2013/14. She will be doing her station week at WBUR radio in Boston, Massachusetts.

Janelle Dumalaon is an anchor, producer and reporter for Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcasting company. She was born in Manila and came to Berlin in 2009. As the creator and lead producer of DW News’ explainer series “Business Beyond”, Dumalaon is especially interested in the events that shape the global economy. She can be found tweeting under @janelledumalaon on business, geopolitics, Germany, and the Philippines. She will be doing her station week at KFSY TV in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Najima El Moussaoui is a TV journalist and a freelance anchor. She has also worked as an editor for the news at NTV commercial all-news network, Deutsche Welle (DW) and has been working most recently for the WDR network in Cologne. She was born in Morocco and came to West Germany as a child. She speaks German, English, Spanish, French and Berber. As an author and director, she worked on the documentary film “Islam goes to school” (WDR/ARD). She is a former board member of Germany’s biggest association of media professionals with foreign roots. She will be doing her station week at KABB in San Antonio, Texas.

Tom Garus is a reporter for the German public broadcaster ARD. He also anchors a TV show (about consumer topics) on RBB, which is the Berlin-Brandenburg local station in the ARD network. Born in east Berlin, Garus is interested in social policy, digitalization and history. Garus will be doing his station week at KLTV in Tyler, Texas

Kristin Becker covers political news for the ARD network’s capital city offices in Berlin and reports reports for Germany’s leading news program, Tagesschau. She is also the anchor of the award-winning Tagesschau- Zukunftspodcast “mal angenommen” (“just assuming”) that discusses scenarios and consequences of political ideas in the future – like what happens if there were only electric cars on the road or if the EU had its own armed forces. In the past, she has worked abroad for the foreign and was a member of foreign desk and was a member of the fact-checking team at Tagesschau. She will be doing her station week at KSL in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Krug started her journalism career as part of the founding team of the German-French Cultural Channel ARTE, based in Strasbourg. During her studies at Munich University and the German Journalism School, she was able to get an internship working on Capitol Hill in the offices of Congressman John Lewis. She works as a senior editor at WDR now and commissions documentary projects for the public broadcasting network. Some of the titles she has commissioned include “THE CLEANERS” on social media, “THE FORTH ESTATE” on Trump versus the NY Times and “WE ARE ALL DETROIT”. She is looking forward to her station week at WXYZ TV in Detroit.

Mareike Makosch is the head of news division at German commercial radio stations Radio Regenbogen and Regenbogen 2 in Mannheim. She is the morning show news anchor for Radio Regenbogen. Makosch, who tries to incorporate as much news about the United States as possible into her broadcasts, holds a master’s degree in psychology and specializes in national and international politics. She will be doing her station week at KTVZ TV in Bend, Oregon.

Marcel Wagner is a news anchor at NTV, the all-news channel of RTL News, Germany’s largest commercial network. He also works as a radio and TV anchor for ARD. As a helicopter pilot, Wagner is an expert in aviation, and also covers sports and business topics. He will be doing his station week at CNN in Atlanta, Georgia.

Annika Witzel is a freelance radio reporter and editor based in Cologne. She mainly works for the German public broadcasting companies WDR and Deutschlandfunk. Annika works for several WDR radio stations, especially for daily news programs, including 1LIVE, a station focused on young audiences. She also works for the WDR science programs “Quarks”, where she takes on scientific topics and breaks them down into easy-to- understand content. At Deutschlandfunk she is part of the team in charge of the prime time morning show. Annika is especially interested in international relations, pop culture and Social Media Trends and in breaking down all the information in snackable pieces for radio stations and online accounts. She will be doing her station week at PBS in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.