Burns Newsletter: December 2014

Arthur F. Burns Fellowship
Alumni Newsletter
December 2014 | Volume 23, No. 4
Holbrooke Grant Reports
Without a Country:
Reporting on Statelessness
By Moises Mendoza (Burns 2009)
M
y path to the Holbrooke Grant
began in 2012 with a desperate man stuck on the small
U.S. territory of American Samoa in
the South Pacific.
Mikhail Sebastian was a stateless
man—someone with no citizenship
whatsoever—who had been living in
the mainland United States under a
special arrangement with the U.S.
government when he decided to
take a vacation to American Samoa.
But when he attempted to return to
his home in Los Angeles, U.S. authorities said he had “self-deported” to
American Samoa and was stuck there
forever.
My reporting on Mikhail’s story uncovered a little known community of
stateless people in the United States
who suffer unimaginably. Because
Continued on page 6
Moises Mendoza with Mikhail Sebastian in Los
Angeles earlier this year, after Sebastian was
able to return to the United States.
Frankly Speaking
Shooting Pigs from a
Helicopter: Reporting on
Guns in America
By Rieke Havertz (Burns 2012)
Dear Alumni,
Participants in a “Helibacon” hunting trip
outside of Houston.
I
t felt a bit like coming home—returning to Chicago to report. It
seemed easy at first, but it turned
out to be a more difficult journey than
my previous trip. I had the privilege to
receive a Holbrooke Research Grant
to continue working on stories about
guns, gun violence and the controversy over the Second Amendment in
the United States. I started this project
last year and was eager to return to
find more answers to the question of
why guns are such an intractable part
of the American soul.
Arriving in August in Chicago—a city
particularly hard hit by gun violence—
I felt comfortable picking up where I
left off with my research. But I quickly
learned that the gun lobby is not eager
Continued on page 7
Yet another turbulent year comes
to a close. The Burns class of 2014
has just returned home, hopefully with many new impressions
and friendships, but also having
witnessed a challenging phase
in transatlantic and international
relations. Foreign coverage and
analysis is needed more than ever,
and not just to cover the major
events such as the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall or
the midterm elections for the U.S.
Congress.
We have greatly expanded the
reach of the fellowship by successfully including two exchanges between Canada and Germany, and
also by offering more Holbrooke
Research Grants to alumni than
ever before. The next Burns Alumni
Dinner is in New York on February
23, with former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband as the guest
of honor. I hope many of you will
make the effort to join us there.
Last but not least, the information
to apply for the Burns Fellowship
2015 will be mailed to all of you
soon. It would be great if you could
Continued on page 7
The Arthur F. Burns Board
German Trustees (2013-16)
Patron: The Honorable John B. Emerson,
U.S. Ambassador to Germany
Dr. Thomas Bellut, Director-General, ZDF
Prof. Dr. Reinhard Bettzuege, Former
German Ambassador
Dr. Martin Blessing, CEO, Commerzbank
AG
Prof. Maria Böhmer, Member of Parliament,
CDU/CSU, State Minister, Foreign Office
Michael Bröcker, Editor-in-Chief,
Rheinische Post
Wolfgang Büchner, Editor-in-Chief,
Der Spiegel
Tom Buhrow, Director-General, WDR
U.S. Trustees (2013-16)
Patron: The Honorable Peter Wittig,
German Ambassador to the United States
Joyce Barnathan, President, International
Center for Journalists (ICFJ)
Elisabeth Bumiller, Deputy Washington
Bureau Chief, The New York Times
Albert Behler, President and CEO,
Paramount Group, Inc.
Ambassador (ret.) J.D. Bindenagel,
Henry Kissinger Professor of Governance
and International Security, University of
Bonn, Germany
Rebecca Blumenstein, Deputy Editor-inChief, The Wall Street Journal
Marcus W. Brauchli, Co-founder and
Managing Partner, North Base Media;
Consultant, Graham Holdings Company
(Chairman)
Stephan-Andreas Casdorff, Editor-in-Chief,
Der Tagesspiegel
Sabine Christiansen, Journalist, TV21 Media
Dr. Mathias Döpfner, CEO, Axel Springer
Thomas Ellerbeck, Chairman, Vodafone
Foundation
Leonhard F. Fischer. Co-Chief Executive
Officer, RHJI Swiss Management
Dr. Rüdiger Frohn, Chairman, Mercator GmbH
Foundation
Emilio Galli-Zugaro, Head Group
Communications, Allianz Group
Dr. Tessen von Heydebreck, Former Member
of the Board, Deutsche Bank (Honorary
Chairman)
Peter Limbourg, Director-General, Deutsche
Welle
Gesine Lötzsch, Member of Parliament, Die
Linke
Rob Meines, Meines & Partner, Den Haag
Mathias Müller von Blumencron, Editor-inChief Digital Media, Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung
Rainer Neske, Member of the Board,
Deutsche Bank (Chairman)
Ines Pohl, Editor-in-Chief, Die Tageszeitung
Dagmar Reim, Director-General, RBB
Claudia Roth, Vice President of the
Bundestag, Member of the Parliament, Die
Gruenen
Helmut Schäfer, Former State Minister,
Foreign Office (Honorary Chairman)
Monika Schaller, Managing Director,
Goldman Sachs AG
Steffen Seibert, Parliamentary State
Secretary, Government Spokesperson
Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Minister of
Foreign Affairs, SPD
Lord George Weidenfeld, Former CEO,
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Orion Publishing,
London; Member of the House of Lords
Dr. Dominik Wichmann, Former Editor-inChief, Stern
Ambassador (ret.) Richard Burt, Senior
Advisor, McLarty and Associates
(Honorary Chairman)
Dr. Martin Bussmann, Managing Director,
Mannheim Holdings LLC
Nikhil Deogun, Managing Editor, CNBC
David W. Detjen, Senior Counsel, Alston &
Bird LLP
Dr. Hans-Ulrich Engel, CFO, BASF SE;
Chairman and CEO, BASF Corporation
John Fraser, Former Master and Chair of
Corporation, Massey College, Toronto
Dr. Frank-Dieter Freiling, Director,
Internationale Journalisten Programme (IJP),
e.V. (Burns President)
Prof. Dr. Ronald Frohne, President and CEO,
GWFF USA, Inc.
James F. Hoge, Jr., Senior Advisor, Teneo
Intelligence (Honorary Chairman)
Ambassador (ret.) Robert M. Kimmitt, Senior
International Counsel, WilmerHale, Former
Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of
the Treasury
The Honorable Dr. Henry A. Kissinger,
Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Former U.S.
Secretary of State
Christian Lange, President and CEO, EII
Capital Management Inc.
The Honorable Frank E. Loy, Former
Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs
(Honorary Chairman)
Richard G. Lugar, President, The Lugar
Center, Former United States Senator
Dr. Daniel Mahler, Partner and Head of
Americas, A.T. Kearney
Kati Marton, Journalist and Author
Michael Oreskes, Senior Managing
Director, The Associated Press
Wolfgang Pordzik, Executive Vice
President, Corporate Public Policy,
Deutsche Post DHL
John F. W. Rogers, Managing Director,
Goldman, Sachs & Co.
Jürgen Siebenrock, Vice President, The
Americas, Lufthansa German Airlines
Calvin Sims, President and CEO,
International House
Kara Swisher, Co-CEO, Revere Digital; CoExecutive Editor, Re/code; and Co-Executive Producer, The Code Conference
Stanford S. Warshawsky, Chairman,
Bismarck Capital, LLC (Vice Chairman)
Ludwig Willisch. President and CEO, BMW
of North America, LLC
Legal Advisor: Phillip C. Zane, Attorney at
Law, GeyerGorey, LLP
Arthur F. Burns Newsletter | December 2014 | Page 2
Alumni News
1990
Michael Amtmann left his position as press spokesman of
the International Munich Film Festival to become the new
head of communications at Gasteig Munich, Germany’s
biggest cultural center. 1992
Claudia Bill-de la Peña won re-election to her fourth term
on the Thousand Oaks City Council.
nalism and photojournalism at a university in Hong Kong for
several months per year, and commuting home to central
Sweden. Steve Kettmann recently became a father. He
met his wife Sarah in Berlin 12 years ago and they were
married earlier this year. They had a baby girl, Coco Marie,
in September. Steve has two books coming out next April.
One is called Baseball Maverick, which focuses on Sandy
Alderson, the general manager of the New York Mets. His
other book, which he ghostwrote, is called The Power of
Being Yourself, a business memoir and guide.
1994
Marko Martin published a new book—a collection of
2000
essays—called Treffpunkt ’89: Von der Gegenwart einer
After 15 years covering medical news for CNN, Miriam
Epochenzäsur (Wehrhahn Verlag), about the people and
Falco is exploring new opportunities as an independent
events surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years
journalist. Sandra Ratzow starts on January 1 as a new
ago. Julia Naumann left Amnesty
correspondent for ARD TV in WashInternational, where she served as
ington, D.C.
press officer for the German section since July 2010. Leveraging
2001
her prior experience as a journalist
After 10 years at Spiegel Online,
for taz and Agence France-Presse,
Daryl Lindsey left in December to
she will start a strategic press and
found his own company, Dacha Memedia consultancy together with
dia. The Berlin-based firm provides
Katja Bettermann, a former journalconsulting and editorial services
ist with N-24. After five and a half
to news organizations—includyears in ARD’s Moscow bureau, Ina
ing Spiegel—that have, or wish to
Ruck moved to Cologne to work as
launch, English-language projects
a special assignment reporter for
in EU markets.
WDR’s foreign desk.
Sheryl Oring during a performance at the Berlin Wall
Memorial on November 9. (Photo by Dhanraj Emanuel)
2002
1995
Katrin Scheib recently joined The
Jan-Eric Peters, editor-in-chief of
Moscow Times as social media
Die Welt, will become the first editor-in-chief in early 2015
editor. She moved to Russia with her husband Markus
of the new WeltN24 group, a joint venture that includes the
Sambale who is a correspondent for ARD radio. Kerstin
daily newspaper and the TV channel N24.
Kohlenberg started a new position as a U.S. correspondent for Die Zeit in September.
1996
Kristina zur Mühlen still commutes between anchoring
2004
“Die Tagesschau,” a daily TV show produced in Hamburg,
Nicola Leske started a new job as head of global media
and “Nano,” a science show on 3-Sat, produced in Mainz.
relations at SAP.
1997
Sheryl Oring’s “Maueramt” exhibition is on display at the
Museum THE KENNEDYS in Berlin through late January.
The work examines views and memories of the Berlin Wall
25 years after its demise. Andreas Wunn, ZDF’s correspondent in Latin America, took the opportunity of a visit
home on November 8 to marry his Brazilian girlfriend.
2005
Fred Pleitgen, CNN’s Berlin correspondent, survived
coverage of the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall,
which was intense and confined—due at 6 foot 5 inches to
the size of the Trabant car used as the center point for his
daily feeds. He will add more international responsibilities
for CNN out of the London bureau.
1998
Karen Kleinwort, who moved to Mexico City last year, has
started working as a freelancer for the German development cooperation agency GIZ.
2007
Paul-Anton Krüger moved from Munich to Cairo in early
October. He has been assigned by the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung as a correspondent for the Middle East
covering 17 Arab countries and Iran. For the past three
and a half years, he worked as the managing editor of the
1999
Since 2012, Dean Cox has been teaching multimedia jour-
Continued on page 8
Arthur F. Burns Newsletter | December 2014 | Page 3
FELLOWSHIP
“The fellowship ended up being quite useful for my beat back home. I’d been spending a lot of time reporting
on commercial drones, but my coverage naturally had a U.S. bent. Once I began reporting from Germany, I discovered a relatively mature market for the devices in Europe and an entirely different regulatory landscape. I traveled
to Hamburg to meet an engineering firm that was using a drone and wrote a long feature for the front of The Wall
Street Journal’s business section examining whether U.S. restrictions were leaving the nation’s commercial-drone
industry behind its peers abroad.”
—Jack Nicas, Staff Reporter, The Wall Street Journal, Chicago, IL; Hosted by: Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin
“I meandered through the city like I did as a local reporter at the
beginning of my radio career. Only the name of the city this time is
not Remscheid, but New York City: an affordable housing protest march
in Brooklyn, a boat dock opening in the Bronx, a back-to-school sale in
Queens. I got to see the five boroughs of New York from a new perspective, rattle the subway up and down from Pelham Bay in the north to
Staten Island in the south...”
Michael Watzke in Harlem
—Michael Watzke, Correspondent, DeutschlandRadio, München; Hosted by:
WNYC, New York City
“By the end of the two months, I had enjoyed my time in Berlin so much that I decided to stay. I secured a
contract to continue working at Deutsche Welle TV and will continue writing for The Journal. Now that my American
and Canadian friends have left, I can’t wait for the German fellows to come home. For driven journalists looking to
expand their international reporting experience or explore a new field in journalism, I can’t recommend the Arthur F.
Burns Fellowship enough.”
—Clare Richardson, Freelance Journalist; Hosted by: Deutsche Welle TV, Berlin
“Although it may sound hackneyed, I will allow myself to write it down since I have experienced it myself
again and again: The seemingly boundless optimism of Americans and their ‘can-do’ attitude impressed
me deeply. I was particularly impressed during my research in the beleaguered city of Detroit, where people simply
tackle problems every day.”
—Sven Böll, Correspondent, Capital Bureau, Der Spiegel, Berlin; Hosted by: The Wall Street Journal, New York City
“I will miss them—the sandwich, chips or ice cream socials
thrown every Friday by my editors; the nice conversations with
colleagues in the long corridors of the CBC; the patience of the
engineers and my bosses, who always supported me with their
enthusiastic, inspiring manner and who provided a motivating work
environment… In absolutely every respect, this fellowship was a
priceless and really great experience.”
Tanja Schuhbauer in The Oregonian newsroom
—Verena Klein, Reporter, Saarländischer Rundfunk (TV), Sarrbrücken;
Hosted by: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Toronto
“I had a blast. Germany is a fantastic country; Süddeutsche Zeitung is a great paper. The people I met
inside and outside the office were friendly and fun. I wrote some good stories. I accomplished what I set out to do.
Professionally, it was rewarding. Personally, it was a great couple months.”
—Peter Mellgard, Freelance Journalist, New York, NY; Hosted by: Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich
Arthur F. Burns Newsletter | December 2014 | Page 4
IMPRESSIONS
“This experience was the best possible thing I could have done at this point in
my career. It gave me the confidence that a small-town reporter could do something
much bigger, and that I personally could handle it. I was able to meet some wonderful people and learn from them as well… This truly was a life-changing opportunity.”
—Rachel Williams, Reporter, The Arab Tribune, Union Grove, AL; Hosted by: Nürnberger
Nachrichten, Nürnberg
Clare Richardson (left) and Rachel Williams
on a language training excursion.
“I learned that more than 7,000 homeless people live on the streets in
San Francisco. What can their stories teach me about America? This
question drove me on. For four weeks, I sat down with these castoffs on the
street, went through homeless shelters, soup kitchens and the streets of
‘Tenderloin,’ the neighborhood where no doorway is empty at night. During
this time, I realized the true luxury of my fellowship: for 16 years I’ve worked
as a journalist, but for the first time I did not have to keep an eye on my watch
while researching my story. I was able to take the time to listen to people, even
those whose stories I knew from the beginning I could not use.”
Tomas Urbina live tweeting at
Brandenburger Tor
—Antje Windmann, Editor, Der Spiegel, Hamburg; Hosted by: Oakland Tribune, CA
“The working conditions for Burns Fellows at The Chicago Tribune are ideal. Managing Editor Jane Hirt is
dedicated to the program. Because a German comes every year, almost every editor is familiar with the concept
of the fellowship.”
—Robin Alexander, Reporter, Welt-Gruppe, Berlin; Hosted by: The Chicago Tribune
Fellows enjoying Oktoberfest
“When I decided—after much back and forth—to spend my Burns Fellowship in Philadelphia, I knew little of this city of 1.5 million. I thought about
cream cheese, the Tom Hanks movie, and maybe the signing of the Declaration
of Independence. I knew nothing about the high crime rate in the city, the difficult social conditions under which many people live, but also about—in spite of
everything—the high quality of life in Philadelphia. Getting to know these different sides of the city, and living and working there, made my stay unforgettable.
I chose Philadelphia because of fellows’ satisfied reports from previous years.
They all praised the excellent support at the Inquirer—a praise I’m happy to
agree with after two months in the newsroom.”
—Franziska Holzschuh, Reporter, Nürnberger Nachrichten, Nürnberg; Hosted by: The
Philadelphia Inquirer
“At home, my job is often behind a desk, so it was great to get into the field by myself, somewhere
where hardly anyone spoke English, and just figure things out. The Burns program is a great way to take
chances… Overall, I feel like the experience has given me more confidence in my reporting ability and allowed me to
try a variety of new things. I originally joined the fellowship program to figure out whether I could live abroad, and the
answer is an enthusiastic yes.”
—Leslie Young, Senior Web Coordinator, Investigative Data Desk, Global News, Toronto, Canada; Hosted by: Zeit Online, Berlin
Arthur F. Burns Newsletter | December 2014 | Page 5
Holbrooke Grant/Mendoza, continued from p. 1
this country does not recognize the
concept of stateless people under its
immigration law, such people living
here often can’t get travel documents
or ever adjust their status. They become stuck in limbo and are at risk of
arbitrary detention and even getting
stuck on far-flung U.S. territories—like
Mikhail—when they go on vacation.
Statelessness is something that many
Americans are shocked to learn exists.
People can become without a country
for many reasons. Some governments use citizenship as a
weapon, stripping it from people who challenge the power
structure. But more often, stateless people just fall through
legal cracks. Mikhail, for instance, was born in modern-day
Azerbaijan and traveled to the United States on a stillvalid Soviet passport in the 1990s. But when it was time
to renew his passport, the Soviet Union was gone and no
country would recognize him as a citizen.
After my reporting, the Department of Homeland Security
allowed Mikhail to come back to the United States under a
special humanitarian parole. But the issue of statelessness
has been on my mind ever since. I’m lucky that the Arthur
F. Burns Fellowship believed in the importance of this subject enough to fund three journalists and me to study the
problem more deeply.
Over the past year, we crisscrossed the United States and
the European Union profiling the ignored community of
stateless people. We met a family in New York City that is
fighting to gain asylum because of its stateless status. We
talked to a Massachusetts woman who, like Mikhail, traveled to the United States on a Soviet passport many years
ago, but became stuck here because no country would
recognize her after the fall of the U.S.S.R. In Europe, we
went from Germany to Poland and Greece as we met many
people with terrible stories to tell about how statelessness
has separated them from their loved ones and left them in
a weird limbo.
Sometimes the project was intensely frustrating. Since nobody is covering statelessness in a Western context, there
Sponsors
SPONSORS IN THE U.S.
Alston & Bird, LLP
A.T. Kearney
BASF
BMW of North America, LLC
Brauchli-Farley Fund
The Capital Group Companies Charitable Foundation
Comcast NBCUniversal
is no infrastructure to help reporters
find stateless people or their advocates. I experienced several sleepless nights as I wondered if we would
really be able to put such an ambitious project together. But through lots
of shoe-leather reporting, we found
several very compelling subjects. We
even took a few interesting detours:
At one point we reported on a community of American Samoans living on
the mainland who are considered U.S.
“nationals” but not citizens by the U.S.
government—a subtle distinction that strips them of many
of their basic rights.
Even if this project does not result in
lasting change, it marks the beginning
of an important conversation about
stateless people that many Westerners
haven’t realized they should be
having. I want to thank the
Arthur F. Burns Fellowship for
giving us the resources to launch
this conversation.
As our reporting has come to an end and we’ve launched
a multimedia website with the help of media partners, I’ve
realized that it is impossible for me to be a truly disinterested or objective journalist when it comes to statelessness.
Certainly, being exposed to so much human misery has
touched me and my colleagues deeply, and we’re grateful
to everyone who has made this project a reality, particularly
the administrators of the Holbrooke Grant who believed
in us. We hope this receives the attention of some policymakers who will think hard about what needs to be done to
offer relief to this community. And we are most grateful to
the many stateless people who opened their lives to us and
shared their struggles, challenges and dreams.
Even if this project does not result in lasting change, it
marks the beginning of an important conversation about
stateless people that many Westerners haven’t realized
they should be having. I want to thank the Arthur F. Burns
Fellowship for giving us the resources to launch this conversation.
Please visit www.statelessvoices.com to see the Stateless
Voices project.
Moises Mendoza is a freelance journalist based in Tucson,
Arizona. He spent his Burns Fellowship in 2009 at the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Since then, his work has
appeared in outlets ranging from The Christian Science
Monitor to GlobalPost.
The Arthur F. Burns Board of Trustees in the United States and Germany acknowledges with
gratitude the support of the following organizations and individuals who have made the
2014 Arthur F. Burns Fellowship program possible.
DHL
EII Capital Management, Inc.
The Ford Foundation
Goldman, Sachs & Co.
GWFF USA, Inc.
The Ladenburg Foundation
Lufthansa German Airlines
Paramount Group, Inc.
Arthur F. Burns Newsletter | December 2014 | Page 6
INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTIONS
John and Gina Despres
David Detjen
Stanford S. Warshawsky
SPONSORS IN GERMANY
Allianz SE
Auswärtiges Amt.
BMW AG
Bundesministerium für
Familie, Senioren,
Frauen und Jugend
Deutsche Bank AG
European Recovery
Program (ERP), Federal
Ministry of Economics and
Technology
Goldman, Sachs AG
Siemens AG
Holbrooke Grant/Havertz, continued from p. 1
to talk to foreign journalists. Five weeks in town turned out
to be nothing in trying to get a grip on how the gun lobby
works, or for that matter, getting in touch with politicians
fighting for more gun regulation. For weeks I wrote emails
and made phone calls with no success.
However, my second story about teenage moms suffering from gun violence was progressing. I spent days in the
South and West Side of the city talking to women with no
prospects and little hope. In the evenings, I returned to my
computer to find no responses from those who influence
gun legislation at the highest level, and who ultimately
influence life on the streets. Then one day, the National
Rifle Association headquarters in Virginia sent me one
sentence: Due to the volume of requests, the NRA cannot
entertain foreign media requests. Not that I was eager to
be “entertained” by the NRA, but nonetheless, three weeks
into my project and my story seemed to die with that single
sentence.
What saved
me was the
unwillingness
of many rightwing people to
obey anyone or
anything. Richard Pearson
is executive
director of the
Illinois State
Rifle AssociaRieke Havertz with Richard Pearson, executive
tion, the NRA’s
director of the Illinois State Rifle Association.
state affiliate
in Illinois. He’s
one of the top lobbyists in the state and has held this position for years—he remembers arguing with Barack Obama
when he was a senator.
He doesn’t answer to anyone in Washington, he said to me
when we met at a diner outside Chicago. Which is probably
why he agreed to meet with me, talk about his work and his
organization, and take me shooting. After meeting with the
lobbyist, things began coming together, as they often do.
Robin Kelly, a congresswoman from Chicago and an active
advocate for more gun control, agreed to an interview. All
these arrangements took time that I never would have had
without the Holbrooke Grant that gave me the chance to
spend so many weeks in town.
Politics and violence are just two aspects of the gun debate
in the States. A huge part is also the everyday life with
guns—the third story for my project. After I left Chicago, I
was in for some all American fun: helicopter pig hunting. A
small company outside Houston offers this service to anyone willing to spend good money for the thrill of shooting
wild pigs with a semi-automatic weapon. It also happens to
Members of the Open Carry Texas group at a rally in San Antonio.
be a service to farmers whose crop is being destroyed by
thousands of pigs, but it seems doubtful that customers are
thinking about the crops while shooting out of a helicopter.
The hunting trip was one of many episodes that showed
me an America I had never experienced before. I visited
schools that are arming their teachers, and walked the
streets of San Antonio with members of an open carry
group whose members fight for the right to bring any
weapon anywhere they want—be it Starbucks or a movie
theater. All these experiences allowed me to draw a picture
that is more detailed than one a quick trip could have offered.
The Holbrooke Grant was fruitful as it allowed me to pursue
my in-depth reporting on gun issues. I talked to many people who expressed views as far from my own as they could
possibly have been. Those perspectives allowed me to
write better stories about an issue that I think helps explain
the many conflicts and diversity within American society.
Rieke Havertz is the online editor and a writer for the German newspaper taz. die tageszeitung. In 2013, she won
a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to research gun violence in Chicago. She spent her 2012 Burns
Fellowship at The Christian Science Monitor.
Frankly Speaking, continued from p. 1
promote the fellowship among your colleagues and encourage qualified journalists to apply. You are the best ambassadors this program has, so please spread the message!
Wishing you a happy and relaxed holiday season and all
the best for an exciting new year! We hope to see you
again in 2015.
Frank
Arthur F. Burns Newsletter | December 2014 | Page 7
Alumni News, continued from p. 3
foreign desk in Munich,
coordinating the paper’s
foreign correspondents
network and planning
the day-to-day coverage
from abroad.
He would welcome Burnsies in New York who want a different view of the city to come visit him in the Bronx.
2008
Holly Pickett and
freelance journalist JoAt right, Philipp Abresch (Burns 2007),
anna Kakissis recently
ARD’s new East Asia correspondent,
received a joint travel
in Singapore with his ZDF counterpart
grant from the Pulitzer
Peter Kunz.
Center on Crisis Reporting to work on a project about Syrian refugees in Europe.
The project is entitled “Syrian Refugees in a Changing
Europe” and includes work from Greece, Germany, Sweden and Russia. Holly is posting updates about the project
on her professional Facebook page, https://www.facebook.
com/hollypickettphotography. Sarah Wildman is thrilled
to announce that her book, Paper Love: Searching for the
Girl My Grandfather Left Behind (Riverhead), is now in
bookstores. O Magazine chose Paper Love as one of “Ten
to Pick Up” for November and Vogue called it a “feat of historical detective work” with “terrific urgency and novelistic
compassion.”
Presenter Max Schmidt with
Doris during the shooting—
giving out free insect snacks.
2009
Doris Tromballa is the author
and director of a new five-part
documentary miniseries on
“The Future of Food (Unser
Essen der Zukunft).” The new
ARD education channel, ARD
alpha, will air the “high-gloss”
series on Dec. 25-31, at 17:30.
After 15 months of research,
script writing, shooting and
editing, she’s excited that ARD
has chosen to air the series
right in the middle of the prime
Christmas season.
2010
Christian Salewski and Fredy Gareis (2009) are collaborating on a cross-media start-up called Follow The
Money (www.followthemoney.de). Their pilot project tracked
e-waste via GPS from Germany to Africa and made the life
cycle of consumer goods transparent to a wide audience.
Among other awards which FTM has received, Christian
and Fredy were named Kultur & Kreativpiloten 2014 by the
German government. While they are expanding and working on new projects, a version of the film about e-waste is
available with English subtitles. Please send an email to
Christian or Fredy if you’re interested in seeing it. After just
over a year working at The Riverdale Press, Shant Shahrigian became editor-in-chief of the newspaper in November.
Arthur F. Burns Newsletter | December 2014 | Page 8
2011
This past spring, Dan Boyce
moved to Denver to accept
a new position as a reporter
with a public media reporting
project called Inside Energy.
Previously, he worked as the
capitol bureau chief for Montana Public Radio. Moritz
Honert published his selfillustrated children’s book, Die
Geschichte von Nepomuk und
Herrn Heinz (Blaukreuz-Verlag). Giang Nguyen married
Hung Lieu, a major in the U.S.
Army.
Giang Nguyen and groom
Hung Lieu
2014
Robin Alexander was nominated for the Deutscher Reporterpreis in the category “best political report” for his story
“Aktion Schreibtisch.” Andrea Rexer just returned from her
fellowship on the West Coast of Canada and was promoted
from Frankfurt correspondent to head of the finance section
of the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich.
The Arthur F. Burns Fellowship Newsletter is published four
times a year by the International Center for Journalists.
Burns Program Staff:
Frank-Dieter Freiling, Director, IJP
Emily Schult, Program Director, ICFJ
Lyndsey Wajert, Program Officer, ICFJ
Leigh Burke, Fundraising Consultant
Maia Curtis, Consultant
Jill Gallagher, Layout/Design
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 German–U.S./Canadian 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.
The program offers young print and broadcast journalists from
Germany, the United States and Canada the opportunity to
share professional expertise with their colleagues across the
Atlantic while working as “foreign correspondents” for their
hometown news organizations.
The Burns Fellowship program is administered jointly by: