Burgard wins inaugural RIAS Media “Grand Prize” in 2022

Jan Phillip Burgard, the editor-in-chief of WeltTV and a prolific German author of books about the United States, won the 2022 “Grand Prize” of the RIAS Berlin Commission for his moving story of a German family whose son was killed in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and their connection with their son’s now-20-year-old son — who never met his father. The story also chronicles the family’s fight to have a memorial in Germany for the numerous German victims of the 9/11 attacks — a tireless effort that ultimately leads to the installation of a piece of the World Trade Center steel being displayed as a memorial for the German victims in the courtyard of the US Embassy in Berlin. Burgard was a Washington, DC correspondent for the ARD news network from 2016 to 2021.

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.