Moving Balzer story on NY emerging from pandemic wins Fellow Prize

Vladimir Balzer, a radio journalist at Deutschlandradio and RIAS alumni, won the RIAS Media Prize for best fellow award in 2022 for his story on New York City’s emergence from the difficult times in the Covid-19 pandemic called: “New York is züruck — eine Stadt befreit sich aus der Pandemic” (New York is back – a city liberates itself from the pandemic).

Balzer, who is one of the alumni chapter leaders in Berlin, worked on the story during a RIAS Berlin Commission short-program for alumni in October 2021 with about 30 other alumni from Germany on a special one-week program. It aired on November 8, 2021 on Deutschlandfunk’s prime-time morning news show listened to by millions of Germans every morning.

This is what the jury had to say about his story: In his riveting story about New York City gradually coming back to life after the devastation of the Covid-19 pandemic, Vladimir Balzer takes Deutschlandfunk listeners on a heart-warming tour of the city that is so hungry for a return to normalcy in the fall of 2021 just before the United States reopened its gates for visitors from the European Union. Important voices through illuminating interviews with idled Broadway actors, American journalists stuck working only from home, badly ailing 9/11 heroes, and lonely Germans stranded in Manhattan are included in this short-but-sweet journalistic masterpiece put together during a RIAS fellowship program.

https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/usa-lockert-einreisebeschraenkungen-new-york-ist-zurueck-100.html

The RIAS Berlin Commission is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. The RIAS Media Prize ceremony will be held for the first time since in 2019. The Covid-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the annual awards ceremony in 2020 and 2021. An independent jury of journalists continued to pick winners in the television, radio and digital categories for German-American exchange program.