Four American and German stories picked RIAS Media Prize winners in 2023
The RIAS Berlin Commission announced four winners from this year’s annual RIAS Media Prize
Awards on Monday. The 31st annual award is presented by the German-American exchange program and celebrates the best of transatlantic broadcast journalism with up to 10,000 EUR inprize-money awarded. The jury made up of six distinguished journalists from the United States and Germany selected the four winners in TV, Radio and Digital Media categories submitted from across the United States and Germany on February 27, 2023.
Wolf Blitzer (CNN) won the grand prize for his film “Never Again” about the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; Stephanie Wolf and Jess Clark (Louisville Public Media News) won a prize for their radio story “A Critical Moment” comparing how the United States and Germany teach schoolchildren about their respective painful histories; Benjamin Arcioli and Hans Jakob Rausch (ARD German TV documentary) won a prize for their story “Ramstein, the documentary”; and Patrick Stegemann won the digital prize for his six-part podcast “Hacking Anonymous” about a group that has been waging a digital war against Russia since it invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The RIAS Berlin Commission will host a gala ceremony on June 1, in Berlin to honor to the winners from the 2023. The RIAS Berlin Commission, created after the legendary Radio in American Sector (RIAS) broadcaster went off the air in 1993, has been operating exchange programs for more than 1,950 German and American broadcast journalists since 1993 with the aim of promoting transatlantic understanding in journalism and keeping alive the spirit of the Cold War-era radio and TV broadcasting network.
Here are the 2023 winning entries:
RIAS Berlin Commision Grand Prize
Wolf Blitzer, CNN, “Never Again: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, A Tour with Wolf Blitzer”
RIAS Berlin Commision Best TV Story Award
Benjamin Arcioli and Hans Jakob Rausch, ARD, “Ramstein, The Documentary”
RIAS Berlin Commission Best Radio Story Award
Stephanie Wolf and Jess Clark, Louisville Public Media News, “A Critical Moment”
RIAS Berlin Commission Best Digital Story Award
Patrick Stegemann, Serafin Dinges, Sylke Gruhnwald and Khesrau Behroz RBB, NDR, Undone podcast: “Legion: Hacking Anonymous”
Jury statements:
Never Again: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, A Tour with Wolf Blitzer
In his illuminating and moving story for CNN on the Holocaust, Wolf Blitzer takes viewers on a personalized examination of the horrors of the past in the hope that nothing like it can ever happen again. With his signature stick-to-the-facts style of storytelling, Blitzer expertly weaves together a powerful story that includes not only the most salient information about the genocide that is delivered during a walking tour of the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington DC with its director Sara Bloomfield, but also includes telling insights about his own family’s place in that history. There are audio and video recordings of his father’s survival story. His four grandparents perished. Blitzer has put a bright spotlight on how the Holocaust is remembered — and also forgotten — in the United States and Germany with an important story on the past for the present and future.
Ramstein – The Documentary: The Ramstein Air Base disaster in 1988 that killed 70 people and injured hundreds more when three Italian stunt jets collided at low altitude right in front of a crowd of spectators is the focus of a harrowing ARD German TV film by Benjamin Arcioli and Hans Jakob Rausch. The impressive film takes a critical look at some of the mistakes made before, during and after the catastrophe in an attempt to help survivors and eyewitnesses come to terms, belatedly, with the horrific accident that left deep scars on West Germany. Interviews with experts and eyewitnesses are also part an outstanding narrative that helps viewers better understand the accident.https://www.ardmediathek.de/sendung/ramstein-das-durchstossene-herz/Y3JpZDovL2Rhc2Vyc3RlLmRlL3JhbXN0ZWluLWRhcy1kdXJjaHN0b3NzZW5lLWhlcno
“A Critical Moment”, Stephanie Wolf and Jess Clark: In their report “A Critical Moment” for Louisville Public Media, Stephanie Wolf and Jess Clark examine one of the flash points in American schools: how to teach students about race and history. Wolf and Clark compared what has been happening in the United States, where laws have been enacted to ban certain topics around race and its legacy from classrooms, with Germany, where students are required to learn about their nation’s crimes against humanity during the Holocaust. In “A Critical Moment”, we hear from German and American educators and experts who speak about the importance of confronting the most difficult times in their country’s history. We also hear from critics who say these type of lessons are not education, but rather indoctrination. https://www.lpm.org/news/a-critical-moment
“Hacking Anonymous”, six-part series for RBB and NDR by Patrick Stegemann, Serafin Dinges, Sylke Gruhnwald and Khesrau Behroz: Russia’s war on Ukraine is a brutal, barbaric act. But this war is being waged in a much more difficult way on another battlefield: On the Internet. The hacker group called “Anonymous” has declared war on Russia. The podcast “Hacking Anonymous” is a gripping thriller that takes the listener on a journey from Germany across Europe to the United States where the group has its origins. Patrick Stegeman gives us insights that have not been seen before. He tries to show who is behind the Anonymous mask and shows that borders no longer matter in the digital cosmos. And shows how much Anonymous has changed the Internet. The story remains free of judgement. it is meticulously researched and asks the right questions. It is a most convincing winner in the digital category. https://www.rbb-online.de/legion/
