8 American journalists heading to Europe for 2-week RIAS fellowship
August 29, 2023
8 American journalists heading to Europe for 2-week RIAS fellowship
Eight mid-career American broadcasting journalists will be spending the first two weeks of September on a fast-paced RIAS Berlin Commission fellowship with stops in four cities: Cologne, Brussels, Erfurt and Berlin. It will be the fifth of eight RIAS Berlin Commission programs this year and third of four programs for Americans in 2023 operated by the German-American bi-national organization that was created to promote transatlantic understanding and journalism networks.
The Americans will be coming from radio, TV and digital stations in seven different states spread across the country for the educational program designed to expand horizons. They will meet German and American journalists working in Cologne, Brussels, Erfurt and Berlin as well as political leaders, policymakers, think tank researchers, artists and ordinary Germans during their two weeks in Europe. Some of the highlights include briefings with senior NATO officials at NATO headquarters in Brussels, with senior European Commission policymakers in Brussels, with leading journalists in Cologne and Berlin as well as with politicians and constitutional watchdog officials in the eastern German city of Erfurt.
The participants are:
Bita Ryan, NBC News, Los Angeles, California
Ryan is an award-winning producer for NBC News, based in Northern California. With more than 25 years of experience, she covers breaking news and feature stories throughout the region, reporting, writing, and producing for NBC Nightly News, the Today Show, and MSNBC. Her work has been recognized with an Emmy, Edward R. Murrow, Peabody, and most recently, a New York Press Club award for her latest work covering the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Ryan has covered significant historical events such as 9-11, Hurricane Katrina, three Presidential elections, and reported from five Olympic Games.
Jason Whitely, WFAA, Dallas, Texas
Whitely is a senior news reporter at WFAA in Dallas / Fort Worth and host of Inside Texas Politics, a weekly political television program that is broadcast statewide on eleven Texas television stations every Sunday morning. Whitely’s also co-hosts the Y’all-itics political podcast. In 2022, one of Whitely’s documentaries, “Let Us Die”, premiered at the Dallas International Film Festival. In addition to politics, Whitely also covers aviation with American Airlines and Southwest Airlines both based in North Texas. He has witnessed five executions of prison inmates on Texas’ Death Row and produced live coverage from ten hurricanes.
Ariel Plotnick, Washington Post, Washington, D.C.
Plotnick is an audio producer for “Post Reports,” the Washington Post’s flagship daily news podcast. She produces everything from daily, breaking news to long form, character driven features. Her work has been included in numerous award packages, including the Post’s 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and a 2022 du Pont-Columbia Award. Before joining The Post, she worked at multiple NPR member stations, filing stories for local and national broadcasts. Plotnick holds a masters from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Michael Schwanke, KWCH, Wichita, Kansas
Schwanke is the evening anchor, investigative reporter and assistant news director for KWCH in Wichita, Kansas. Schwanke has worked in many roles at KWCH over the last 23 years, starting as a multimedia journalist, weekend anchor, investigative reporter and now evening anchor. He is a two-time Emmy award winner and has won various other awards including the national Edward R. Murrow and three regional Edward R. Murrow awards.
Susan Huang, CNN, Atlanta, Georgia
Huang is a senior producer at CNN International, based at the network’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. She has over two decades of newsroom experience writing, producing and supervising breaking news, newscasts, and specials. She has extensively covered the War in Ukraine, the coronavirus pandemic, North Korea’s nuclear program, and Europe’s migrant crisis. She is an Emmy award-winning journalist honored as part of a team for sharing the stories of people working to change the world, and is a former Jefferson Fellow.
Deepa Shivaram, NPR, Washington, D.C.
Shivaram is a political reporter at NPR where she covers the White House, Department of Justice and elections for radio and digital, and on The NPR Politics Podcast. She joined NPR as a digital reporter in 2021, covering domestic and international breaking news. Previously, she was an NBC News campaign embed during the 2020 election, where she reported on the Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren campaigns.
Laura Evans Baines, KIRO, Seattle
Evans Baines is a journalist with 23 years of broadcast news experience in 6 markets. She is currently a news director at KIRO in Seattle. She is a second year doctoral student working on her DBA. Evans lived in Germany as a student from 1998-2000 and is thrilled to be able to go back as a seasoned journalist 23 years later. In her free time, she is a hiker who also loves skiing, biking, and camping.
Shirley Zilberstein, NBC News, New York, New York
Zilberstein is a New York-based director of news standards for NBC News and the NBCUniversal News Group. Shirley started her career in politics, working for a presidential campaign, but quickly realized she preferred to cover politics from the outside than be entangled in it. She worked for years at CNN – first in Washington, DC and later in New York – field producing political stories on the campaign trail and national stories like hurricanes, plane crashes and culture clashes. Zilberstein has spent the second half of her career at 30 Rock, first as an Executive Producer at MSNBC, where she launched the show “Melissa Harris-Perry” and Craig Melvin’s first show, then at NBC News as director of the politics desk in 2020 and now the news group standards and practices team, guiding fellow journalists through ethical issues in their reporting efforts.
