Young Journalists in Berlin 2011
Thirteen aspiring young journalists from six top journalism schools in the United States traveled to Munich and Berlin in July 2011 on the invitation of the German Foreign Office to meet with political decisionmakers, visit businesses that drive Germany's economic growth and to experience the vibrant cultural life of these two major cities. They also had ample opportunity to network with German journalists from print, online, broadcast and television media and to spend an evening with students from a German journalism school.
Participants are students or recent graduates from Arizona State University (Walter Cronkite School of Journalism), Howard University, University of Missouri, Northwestern University (Medill School of Journalism) University of California (Berkeley) and the University of Southern California (Annenberg).
They each took home their very own personal experience. And they share those stories here.
Bathed in graffiti and bursting with kinetic creativity, Art House Tacheles, the former department store turned artists’ collective in the Mitte section of Berlin, caught the attention of three of our young journalists – and quite understandably so.
Tacheles
Since arriving in Berlin, I’d been fascinated by the lingering physical and social traces of the wall. So on our first free morning in town, I chose to spend some time at Checkpoint Charlie, previously a tightly-controlled transit corridor between East and West Berlin during the height of the Cold War.
Sarah V. White, Northwestern University
To the average visitor, Berlin is in all respects a modern city – fast-paced, tourist-heavy and filled with shops, clubs and restaurants. For me, Berlin was a city that came with a feeling, a weight of a dark past preserved and created in the architecture of its buildings and memorials.
Jessica Q. Chen, Northwestern University
Biking is part of city life in Berlin. In this video Brittany Jacobs explains why biking is one of the cheapest, healthiest and fastest ways to get from Point A to Point B.
Brittany Jacobs, Howard University
On Thursday, July 21, the leaders of the 17 Eurozone countries agreed to support Greece and the common European currency with a second bailout of 109 billion euro ($157 million). This decision, as well as the meeting between the leaders of the EU’s two largest member states, Germany and France, underline the direction Europe is going in becoming a more unified, supranational entity.
Stefan Bellm, University of Missouri
Standing in the United States, the idea of such a large, industrial nation operating without any nuclear energy seems a rather ambitious task. But the more I talked about nuclear energy with government officials, green energy innovators and German citizens themselves, the more I realized how much Germany has wanted to rid itself of nuclear power for a long time.
Alexa Vaughn, University of California at Berkeley
