German fellows will be posted at The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and other leading U.S. news organizations, while U.S. reporters will be based at prestigious German news outlets.

Washington, DC - Nineteen select young journalists from the United States and Germany will spend the summer working as foreign correspondents on either side of the Atlantic as 2009 Arthur F. Burns Fellows. This is the 20th year for U.S. journalists to report in Germany under this program.

The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the Internationale Journalisten-Programme (IJP) in Konigstein, Germany, administer the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship program. The journalists will work at host newspapers, online news sites, magazines, and radio and television stations for two months, producing reports for their home and host outlets.

“In times of reduced international presence by nearly all media outlets, sending journalists abroad as correspondents, even for a short period, is vital to maintaining quality in global reporting,” said Burns President Frank Dieter Freiling.

Today, nearly half of German journalists who report on U.S. issues are former Burns Fellows.

The 2009 Burns Fellows from the United States are: (host media outlets are in italics)

Harold Brubaker, staff writer, Philadelphia Inquirer (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich)
Helen Chang, freelance journalist (focus on arts, culture & science), Vienna, Austria (Financial Times Deutschland, Hamburg)
Helen Fields, freelance journalist (focus on science, formerly with National Geographic magazine and U.S. News & World Report), Washington, DC (Welt/Welt am Sonntag, Berlin)
David Francis, freelance journalist (focus on politics, energy and business), Washington, DC (Financial Times Deutschland, Berlin)
Milan Gagnon, freelance journalist (focus on culture & arts), Palm Desert, CA (Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Essen)
Moira E. Herbst, writer, BusinessWeek, New York (Der Spiegel, Berlin)
Chris Hoff, freelance reporter & producer, 91.7 KALW Public Radio, San Francisco, CA (Bayerischer Rundfunk-Radio, Munich)
Moises Mendoza, Hearst fellowship reporter, Houston Chronicle, TX (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt)
Clay P. Risen, managing editor, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Washington, DC (Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin)
Eric Ulken, freelance journalist (focus on new media and new information technology), Peachtree City, GA (Spiegel Online, Berlin)

The 2009 Burns Fellows from Germany are: (host media outlets in italics)

Roman Deininger, editor, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Ingolstadt, Bavaria (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Fredy Gareis, freelance journalist, Der Spiegel, Berlin (Chicago Tribune)
Roman Kessler, editor, Dow Jones, Frankfurt, (The Wall Street Journal)
Barbara Leidl, reporter, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Munich (Oregon Public Broadcasting, Portland)
Roman Pletter, editor, Brand Eins, Hamburg (The Washington Post)
Stefan Tomik, editor, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt, San Francisco Chronicle) Doris Tromballa, reporter, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Munich (WPBT, Miami)
Gregor Waschinski, editor, AFP, Berlin, (Orange County Register, Santa Ana)
Björn Winter, editor, Sat 1, Hamburg (KGW - Northwest NewsChannel 8, NBC affiliate, Portland, OR)

“Burns is not about facilitating journalism, but more about empowering journalists,” says 2008 Fellow Tony Ganzer, morning edition producer from KJZZ Phoenix, who worked at Deutsche Welle in Bonn. Adds Susanne Amann, editor of Spiegel Online, who spent last summer at the San Francisco Chronicle: “I learned a lot about the American culture, the way of life, their habits, their society and their way of thinking. But all that raised a lot more questions—the more you get into a country the more things you want to know. Therefore I will be back some day.”

The program is supported by BASF, Robert Bosch Stiftung, Continental Airlines, DHL, The Ford Foundation, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Goldman, Sachs & Co., GWFF USA, Inc., The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Mars Incorporated, Tupperware, and other organizations and individual contributors.

The Burns program is named in honor of the late U.S. ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany and former President of the U.S. Federal Reserve. The nine-week program takes place in August and September each year

The Arthur F. Burns Fellowship program is an exchange of journalists between Germany and the United States, with the primary purpose of increasing public knowledge and understanding about the two countries, and the relations between them, through independent mass media. A parallel goal of the program is to develop reporters who are interested, skilled and informed about U.S.-German and U.S.-European relations.

The International Center for Journalists, a non-profit, professional organization, promotes quality journalism worldwide in the belief that independent, vigorous media are crucial in improving the human condition. Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, ICFJ has worked with 55,000 journalists and media managers around the globe. For more information, visit www.icfj.org.

Internationale Journalisten-Programme (IJP) aim to further the understanding of promising journalists for political, cultural and economical developments far beyond the boundaries of their home countries. Through bursaries, multilateral conferences, fact-finding tours and press briefings, the IJP allows journalists to make new professional contacts and gather experiences as well as gain new insights. Through its network of programs, the IJP reaches journalists in over 40 countries. For more information, visit www.ijp.org.