"America Forever"

Die Welt newspaper is housed in a beautiful building overlooking the former East Berlin. Axel Springer, the founder of the paper, wanted to inspire the people of Easy Berlin with an icon of free journalism. The question and answer session with the managing editor gave a great insight into the future of the paper and how they differ from America. One interesting aspect of their paper is a “barcode” feature which allows readers to take a picture of a code in the paper, text it to the paper’s number, and receive the story on their cell phone. Their journalism is also less focused on the individual writer and more focused on the story. It was kind of scary to hear the offices were a target of violence after they published controversial cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in 2003.

The RBB public radio and TV station was also very different from the United States. Even though it was publicly funded, it was not affiliated with the government; the RBB receives money in the form of monthly fees every TV owner in Germany must pay. The RBB is then not as affected by ratings as a normal US station; TV programming decisions are made by a council of thirty people. Quality is stressed above popularity. The building also houses three radio stations and a concert hall. This building, which was built in 1933 and survived bombings in WWII, was occupied by the Soviet Army until 1956, even though it is in West Berlin. The stations were used for propaganda by the Soviets and by the Nazis during WWII.