The Elephant in the Room at the Berlin Alumni Dinner
By Barbara Junge (Burns 1998)
This year, the atrium of the Deutsche Bank in Berlin seemed almost too small to accommodate the annual Burns Dinner. Thirty years of sending young fellows to the United States, Germany and Canada as part of the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship means almost 600 alumni now, quite a lot of whom live and work in Berlin. One hundred sixty-five alumni and board members assembled in Berlin-Mitte on May 29 for this special 30
th
anniversary. However, the elephant in the room was Trump, Merkel and the future of transatlantic relations.
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Burns Trustee Christian Sewing of Deutsche Bank at the Berlin Dinner.
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"Tear Down this Wall:"
The Inside Story of Reagan's Iconic Speech
By Curt Nickisch (Burns 2005)
At a time when U.S. President Donald Trump dominates headlines with Twitter messages, the Burns Fellowship organized a panel to
commemorate the 30
th
anniversary of one of the more iconic speeches of the 20
th
century -- and also of the fellowship's founding. Burns alumni and friends of the fellowship in attendance at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C, heard the intriguing backstory behind Ronald Reagan's "Tear Down This Wall" speech before Berlin's Brandenburg Gate in 1987.
Germany's Ambassador to the United States Peter Wittig introduced the panel that included Richard Burt, the U.S. ambassador to Germany at the time, and Peter Robinson, the speechwriter tasked with writing what is now considered Reagan's best spee
ch. Moderating the panel was Romesh Ratnesar, journalist and author of
Tear Down this Wall: A City, a President, and the Speech that Ended the Cold War
.
"I first wrote, 'Herr Gorbachev, machen Sie dieses Tor auf!'" Robinson remembered with a smile. "And [chief Reagan speechwriter] Tony
Dolan said, 'Peter, when your client is the president of the United States, give him his best line in English.'"
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From left: Peter Robinson, Speechwriter to President Reagan, The Honorable Richard Burt, Former U.S. ambassador to Germany, and Romesh Ratnesar, author,
Tear Down This Wall: A City, A President, and the Speech That Ended the Cold War.
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Arthur F. Burns Awards 2016
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From left: 2016 award winners Nora Gantenbrink, Ansgar Graw, and Kerstin Kohlenberg at the Berlin Dinner.
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1992
Catherine Girardeau
is now working as a senior producer with the Stanford Storytelling Project, producing podcasts and live storytelling events with college students.
Starting in September, Elisabeth Niejahr will become editor-at-large for the weekly business magazine Wirtschaftswoche. She will leave the weekly Die Zeit, where she has been economics correspondent and deputy chief of the Berlin bureau.
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Manuel Unger
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2000
Sandra Ratzow
is returning to ARD headquarters after serving as their TV correspondent in Washington since January 2015. Manuel Unger is
still working as a freelance journalist, after working for seven years as a radio host at DRadio Wissen. In May, he started at WDR 4 as a host and is also working as a TV journalist for ARD Morgenmagazin and legendary Rockpalast.
2005
Sabra Ayres
is
the new Moscow correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. She started on May 1 and moved to Russia on May 15. So far, the friendliest expat journalists she has met have all been Germans. If any Burns alumni are in Russia, she'd be pleased to get in touch!
Alex Davidson
started a new position as marketing manager for the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board. Previously he was a social media strategist, editor, and writer with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
2013
Amrai Coen
and colleague Tanja Stelzer were awarded the Henri Nannen Award, one of Germany's most prestigious media awards, for best reporting for an article published in the weekly Die Zeit called "Brussels, March 22, 2016," a remarkable portrait of the victims of the Brussels terror attack.
2015
Dave Blanchard
is moving to Washington, D.C., to be a producer at NPR's Morning Edition.
Pia Dangelmayer
was part of the winning team for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service this year for a series that she worked on full-time at ProPublica during her Burns Fellowship. She wrote, "I already knew that my summer in New York was amazing, but this honor makes it even better."
Daniel Guillemette
has a new job as associate audio producer at WNYC.
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Fellowship Opportunities for Burns Alumni
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The German Chancellor Fellowship for tomorrow's leaders
Application deadline: September 15, 2017
Start of fellowship: October 1, 2018
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation grants up to 50 German Chancellor Fellowships every year to prospective leaders from Brazil, China, India, Russia and the United State -- irrespective of their field of work. Recipients use the fellowship to conduct, together with their German host and mentor, a socially-relevant project that they have developed themselves.
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International Center
for Journalists
2000 M St. NW, Suite 250
Washington, D.C. 20036
Tel: 1-202-737-3700
Fax:1-202-737-0530
Email:
[email protected]
URL:
www.ICFJ.org
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Internationale Journalisten- Programme
Postfach 1565
D-61455
Königstein/Taunus
Tel: +49-6174-7707
Fax: +49-6174-4123
Email:
[email protected]
URL:
www.IJP.org
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The Burns Fellowship program is
administered jointly by:
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Washington Reception:
July 26, 2017
Residence of the German Ambassador
2017 Fellowships:
July 25 - Sept. 30, 2017
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Visit our website to
see the full list of the U.S. and German Board of Trustees.
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| North American Burns Board of Trustees |
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By contributing to Arthur F. Burns Fellowships, Inc., you allow us to make a difference for German, American and Canadian journalists, their news organizations and their audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. To make a tax-deductible donation, please contact Burns.
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The Holbrooke Research Grants offer stipends of up to €4,000 to as many as 10-15 print, broadcast and new media journalists. Grantees will be selected by an advisory board, including professionals and trustees working in journalism.
Click
here to learn how to apply.
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The Arthur F. Burns Fellowship Newsletter is published three times a year by the International Center for Journalists.
Burns Program Staff:
Frank-Dieter Freiling, Director, IJP
Emily Schult, Senior Program Director, ICFJ
Lori Ke, Program Assistant, ICFJ
Maia Curtis, Burns Consultant
Named in honor of the late former U.S. ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany and former Federal Reserve Board chairman, the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship Program fosters greater understanding of transatlantic relations among future leaders of the news media.
The Burns program was established in 1988 in Germany by the Internationale Journalisten-Programme (formerly the Initiative Jugendpresse) and was originally designed for young German journalists. In 1990, the fellowship expanded to include American journalists, making it a true exchange. In 2013, it expanded to include Canadian journalists.
Each year 20 outstanding journalists from the United States, Canada and Germany are awarded an opportunity to report from and travel in each other's countries. The program offers young print and broadcast journalists from each country the opportunity to share professional expertise with their colleagues across the Atlantic while working as "foreign correspondents" for their hometown news organizations.
Fellows work as part-time staff members at host newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations. In addition to covering local news, fellows report on events for their employers back home, while learning more about their host country and its media.
This competitive program is open to U.S., Canadian and German journalists who are employed by a newspaper, news magazine, broadcast station or news agency, and to freelancers. Applicants must have demonstrated journalistic talent and a strong interest in North American-European affairs. German language proficiency is not required, but is encouraged.
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