RIAS group from USA visits Cologne, Brussels, Erfurt and Berlin

September 11, 2023

RIAS group from USA visits Cologne, Brussels, Erfurt and Berlin

A group of eight mid-career American journalists spent a busy first week of their RIAS Berlin Commission fellowship learning more about German and European broadcasting and politics on visits to Cologne, Brussels and Erfurt.

The eight Americans from across the United States first spent two days visiting newsrooms and journalists at the WDR TV and radio public broadcasting stations in Cologne as well as NTV and RTL, two leading German commercial networks across the Rhine River. The Americans also went to talk with an editor of “Domradio”, a feisty and independent radio station funded by the country’s churches. They also met more than a dozen members of the Cologne Alumni Chapter at a beer garden, which are part of the summer-time culture in a country with relatively little air conditioning.

The group also visited NATO and European Commission officials during their two days in Brussels that followed and also had the chance to meet American and German journalists working in Brussels for Politico, the Washington Post, Deutsche Welle, NPR and the DPA news agency. They also had an alumni get-together in Brussels.

The Americans finished off their first week with a high-speed ICE train train from Brussels to the eastern German city of Erfurt, where they met the Thuringia state conservative party leader Mario Voigt, the head of the state’s office for the protection of the constitution Stephan Kramer, and a rising young star in state’s CDU, Lili Fischer.  It was the fifth RIAS Berlin Commission Exchange program this year and third with Americans visiting Germany.