Point Park University students tour ZDF with Wulf Schmiese

Wulf and his co-host chat with musical act Frida Gold

Wulf and his co-host chat with musical act Frida Gold

by Johnie Freiwald

On their fourth day in Berlin, Point Park students and faculty visited the public television network Zweites Deustches Fernsehen or ZDF. They were awake bright and early to walk to the station with their tour guide because the day held something special: They were ready to be part of the studio audience of ZDF’s morning show, MoMa Café.

During the show the students experienced a live performance by Frida Gold, a German pop band. ZDF’s MoMa Café is a modern, trendy show similar to the United States’ “Good Morning America.” They regularly bring musical acts and guests that are well known by the young people in Germany to attract a youthful audience.

The hosts of MoMa Café frequently took time to speak with their studio audience. However, because the show is completely in German, most of the Point Park students were more or less in the dark for the entirety of the show. Despite the language barrier, MoMa Café has a similar format to many American morning news and talk shows with guests, musicians, video segments, games, and interruptions to present the weather or breaking news.

After the show, the group met with one of the show’s presenters or host, Wulf Schmiese. He spent most of his career as a hard-news journalist and had studied in the United States for a number of years during his time in university. Schmiese worked as a political correspondent for a Bonn newspaper in the early 2000s and then went on to be one of the founders of the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine. Then, in 2009, he left his longtime post as a political correspondent to cohost ZDF’s MoMa Café.

He explained that because ZDF is a public broadcasting system, and the one and only national television station in Germany, it does not have to worry about revenue. German residents must pay 16 euros a month to get this channel. “It’s a huge amount of money we get every year, billions of dollars,” he said. “For viewers, we mark it [pour programming] down to 16 cents for getting information and entertainment. Our show, I describe it as a salad. … the meat is the political stuff and the green and red stuff is the entertainment.

“It works well. It’s part of the democracy here. We’re like a newspaper. We’re like a magazine … a little bit of everything.”

The audience of ZDF's morning talk show, MoMa Cafe.

The audience of ZDF’s morning talk show, MoMa Cafe.

Schmiese imparted his wisdom about broadcasting and ZDF to the Point Park students and a group of young Palestinian students studying international diplomacy who were also visiting Germany. He explained what journalism means to him: “You have to find the middle. You have to find a way that it is not too banal or too stupid for people who are informed and have an idea of what’s going on in Palestine or wherever. You can’t be too complicated just for the professors and have a lot of people saying ‘What is he talking about.’  So you really have to find the middle way.”

He prepares himself by reading voraciously and writing his own scripts. That helps his presentation of the information, something he said he is still working on and critiques continually. He develops four to five questions for his interview subjects on the show but still tries to be natural in his work.

Schmiese is also the producer and editor-in-chief for the show, and he said the planning process starts days ahead of the broadcast. The staff is flexible, though, for breaking news. “We work like a newspaper,” he said. “The team watches what happens overnight and we have a telephone conference at 8 a.m. for the next day’s work.

The students were able to take away the level of Schmiese’s experience and expertise as well as his love for his work. His past work as a correspondent – sometimes even joining the president, chancellor, and foreign minister on trips – as well as his current post as a successful morning show host helped him, he told the students.

Schmiese answered questions about German’s allegiance to Israel and the need to recognize Palestine as a nation from the diplomacy students, who wore commemorative T-shirts marking the exact anniversary of that day in 1948 that Palestinians were expelled from Israel and now still cannot return to Haifa.

“Germany has a special relationship with Israel. We don’t call Palestine a nation … but as a territory. We must be careful – as people may say you who killed the Jews. Germany is waiting for U.N. acceptance as Palestine as a state. It should be more of what your people want, not what your government wants,” he said. Schmiese noted that he had worked as a correspondent in the Middle East and had full knowledge of the difficulty of divided cities and nations as he responded.

. The Point Park students finished this informative and fun-filled visit with a group picture with Schmiese and their new Palestinian diplomacy student friends.

Point Park University’s International Media Class gets a touch of culture in Salzburg, Austria

Mirabell Gardens all photos courtesy of Johnie Freiwald

Mirabell Gardens
all photos courtesy of Johnie Freiwald

by Johnie Freiwald
Point Park University students and faculty visited Salzburg, Austria, on Sunday, May 19, on a side trip as part of this year’s International Media class.  Salzburg has a rich history of musically talented people.  The students dodged raindrops to see the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and where the famous singing Von Trappe family lived, a real family made famous by their story’s retelling in the widely known film 1965 film “The Sound of Music.”

When the Point Parkers arrived in Salzburg, they met Ursula, their tour guide for the day. The tour began at the intricately designed Mirabell Gardens.  The garden is near the steps made famous by the Trappe family children singing “Do, Re, Me” in “The Sound of Music.”  Next to these beautiful gardens, the tradition of music continues, in the Mozarteum.  This music university hosts musicians from all over the world and takes pride in training today’s musicians and theatre arts students. The Mozarteum is also home to the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, one of Austria’s most well-known orchestras and a longtime participant at the Salzburg Festival in July.

The tour included brief stops at the two houses where Mozart lived – where he was born and where he lived as a teenager before leaving for Italy and finally Austria, playing for kings and queens during his brief but prolific career as a composer and musician.

Lovelocks on the Makarsteg Bridge

Lovelocks on the Makarsteg Bridge

The Point Park students then crossed the Makarsteg Bridge, which is home to many lovelocks. A lock is placed on the bridge by a couple to symbolize that their relationship will last forever.  After the lock is placed on the bridge the key is thrown into the Salzach River. As the group proceeded on their tour of Salzburg they saw vendors selling goods by the river.  Many generations of Austrians have had the pleasure of enjoying these open air markets.  They are now visited by citizens and tourists alike.

On a Sunday, many residents strolled the streets dressed in their traditional Austrian garb, something Ursula said is very common and evidence of pride in their heritage.

One of the most prominent features of Salzburg is the vast number of churches. One specific church, Sebastianskirche and Friedhof, which has been repeatedly rebuilt due to deterioration and natural disasters, features the classic baroque style that is so iconic in Gothic architecture. The church contains a crowded but very beautiful cemetery that is the resting place for hundreds of late Austrians.

Salzburg Cathedral

Salzburg Cathedral

The last stop on the tour was the Salzburg Cathedral.  The church was lit up with brilliantly colored lights to celebrate the Catholic youths convening that weekend in Salzburg. There were rows of flickering candles surrounded by groups of prayerful churchgoers, young and old. Outside, the group admired the grand architecture and marble stairs. Even near the church there were plenty of street vendors and money to be made by musicians and buskers, especially across the street where an army of horse-drawn carriages stood in waiting for tourists to purchase their services and ride through the Salzburg streets.

The group finished its visit in Salzburg with free time to explore the collection of shops, cafes, and street vendors followed by some traditional Austrian dining. The Point Parkers then embarked for their train and returned safely, yet exhausted, to Munich.