US Journalists reflect on their RIAS Berlin Fellowship in Germany

Marlissa Collier, The Dallas Nomad, Dallas, Texas

Four cities. Five hotel rooms. Fourteen days. That was the math of the RIAS Berlin Commission fellowship in Belgium and Germany, a whirlwind that was as exhaustingly disorienting as it was exhilarating. Jet lag blurred into long days of meetings, and nights were punctuated by the kind of half-awake confusion where I’d bolt upright at 3 a.m. and have no idea which hotel room I was in or which way to stumble toward the bathroom on this particular night. And yet, between the fatigue and frantic pace, something remarkable happened. The eleven of us—journalists plucked from across the U.S.—found ourselves in the middle of seismic conversations about the future of democracy, the state of journalism, and the shifting alliances of a world that feels more fragile than ever. In Brussels, at NATO headquarters and the European Commission, officials spoke candidly about the “brave new world” the current U.S. president has created with Europe. Trust, they said, is no longer assumed—it must be constantly recalibrated. Security, energy, and migration policy all feel more tenuous, with allies wondering just how durable America’s commitments really are. Later, think tank conversations in Berlin underscored the same point: the postwar order we take for granted is far more precarious than it looks. Meanwhile, in Cologne, Berlin, and Leipzig, we traced the contours of a journalism industry in flux. Public broadcasters in Germany remain robust thanks to strong public funding, a model that feels almost utopian compared to the fragile economics of U.S. media. But even that system is under threat. The far-right AfD party has made it clear they’d like to gut public funding—eerily reminiscent of how MAGA-aligned conservatives in the U.S. have attacked our own public institutions. At the same time, traditional outlets are leaning into personality-driven storytelling, experimenting with models where the line between journalist and influencer blurs. As the co-founder and publisher of The Dallas Nomad, I recognized my own path in this shift—working to democratize the news by amplifying the voices of the people themselves. Still, all of this unfolded against a backdrop of breaking news at home that rattled our group in real time. It felt as though we had unknowingly been holding the United States together—and once we crossed the Atlantic, the country lost the last shred of good sense we’d left behind. Early in the trip, a school shooting dominated the headlines. German journalists we met confided their fears of losing visas. And then, in Cologne, during an alumni dinner, every phone in the room buzzed at once: Charlie Kirk had been murdered. The mood shifted instantly. Over dessert, the realization settled in—we’d be returning to an America far different from the one we’d departed. Through it all, our cohort became its own tight-knit newsroom. Ten broadcast and public radio professionals and me—the newsfluencer. We got very good at reading one another. When I caught the cold making its way through the group and went quiet, my colleagues carried me through long meetings. When I felt better, I stepped up to lead foreign policy discussions with NATO or policy think tanks. Intellect, humor, empathy, and yes, occasional mood swings (jet lag is undefeated) defined our little traveling newsroom. But there were lighter moments, too. Like our stop at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin. There was no urgent reason to go—it just felt like visiting the aunt who lives in town. If you don’t swing by, she’ll call your mom and tell on you. So we stopped in, checked on the family, and moved on. Personally, I also loved dropping into the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund. As a former Marshall Memorial Fellow, it was a full-circle moment—a chance to reconnect with old friends and see how my past work in transatlantic policy dovetailed with this present experience. And of course, the culture. The castles, the dungeons, the endless glasses of wine. Meals that lingered, nights that stretched. Public transit so efficient it put American cities to shame. Step counts that rivaled marathons. By the end, our legs carried the story of the trip as much as our notebooks did. Looking back, the RIAS experience was a study in contrasts—policy and nightlife, exhaustion and exhilaration, democracy’s fragility set against moments of sheer joy. It reminded me that journalism is both global and human, that even in moments of disorientation and fatigue, we can hold each other up, and that sometimes, halfway around the world, you glimpse more clearly the weight of the stories waiting back home.