Usually when my alarm is set for 5 a.m., I know something exciting is going to happen. Today’s agenda definitely didn’t let me down. The early rise led us to ZDF, Germany’s public broadcasting network, for their morning talk show: Morgen Magazin. We actually got to sit in the audience on the set of a live broadcast! It was laid out like a cafe, which was a really versatile set and offered such a casual and personal atmosphere for interaction on screen. Speaking of casual, the female anchor was in jeans and tennis shoes! It started off with a music segment featuring the artist Alina Süggeler of Frida Gold. I loved her sound and actually got a copy of their album to check out. The show topics included Angelina Jolie’s double mastectomy, commentary on The Great Gatsby and a “prank” type segment on men’s pole dancing becoming a future Olympic sport. My kind of program, even though, apparently, the audience watching at 9 a.m. has an average age of 59.
After the show, we met with the male anchor Wulf Schmiese, who was absolutely wonderful and painted a detailed picture of ZDF’s role in Germany’s media platform: to inform the people and keep them interested in important topics. Even though the ones I described in the examples above don’t seem all that crucial to a functioning democracy, he explained why they are important as well with what I thought was quite a beautiful metaphor. He compared ZDF’s morning broadcast to a salad. The meat is the talk about politics and interviews with politicians, but it has to have a little bit of color, carrots and papers, to add that extra flavor.
I was very pleased to hear that he chose journalism for the same reason I did, a vast array of interests. He was really into politics, but didn’t want to be a politician. Really loves sports, but didn’t want to be a professional athlete. Interested in movies, but don’t want to become an actor. Journalism is perfect in that you can talk about what you love and never be bored. He also made a joke about journalists and their “arrogance,” saying that they take one shower and they are an expert on water, which I thought was not only hilarious, but so true! The advice he had for us was to “be critical in a good mood,” which is an excellent perspective for journalism and life in general. Be curious. Doubt. Ask questions. But never be rude about it.
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