Dispatches Archives - Page 9 of 21

September 4, 2013September 17, 2021

Rediscovering the “homeland”

It wasn’t a surprise, but it also wasn’t necessarily the easiest solution: my former employer World Radio Switzerland was sold by the public service, destined to become a local commercial station in Geneva. That change has happened, and the vast majority of regular news staff from the public service were let go.

Our station had a tough history–one better explained in person and over a beverage–but it had accomplished an impressive task of producing award-winning coverage about Switzerland, and educating Swiss and ex-pats alike as to how that idiosyncratic country works (or doesn’t.)

The staff of WRS was given about a year to prepare itself for the eventual sale. Some claimed our jobs would be secure until 2014, others, myself included, expected less. We lost our political reporter and news director right away, and others were looking at the door.

As my family had to begin to think about schooling for my child, and I had to focus on my dissertation for my MA, we made one of the hardest decisions we have ever made: quit, leave Switzerland, and leave Europe, after four years abroad. Shortly after we made this decision, and I gave my notice, the station’s sale was finalized and a timeline was in motion.

Staff had about three months before they would be laid-off, and the station and all content would disappear to be reborn as another kind of radio. It is not my kind of radio, but it didn’t really affect me; my plans were already in motion.

Readjusting to the USA, which I hadn’t visited in two years, has been difficult. It is even more difficult than when I returned from two months in Germany back in 2008. At that time I wrote this: “People ask if it’s hard to readjust after two months abroad. In some ways it is: the little German I know is now less useful, and I have to be careful not to use it without context. It’s weird not using trains and public transport, even walking everywhere. And it’s weird answering the question “is it hard to readjust after two months abroad.”

Continue reading “Rediscovering the “homeland””

July 13, 2013June 1, 2020

Keeping our eyes open

One of the earlier things I noticed when I moved to Switzerland was a seemingly large number of black men stopped by police.

It seemed that any time I saw a man of color on the street, he was surrounded by three or more Zurich police officers checking his ID, and asking what he is doing. Many of these men are asylum seekers, with the majority from Eritrea or Nigeria.

Switzerland is not the most racially diverse country, so maybe I was more sensitive to the issue of racial profiling than I otherwise would be. But I kept noticing police turning their cars around and hopping out to question a black man on the street, or when I had lunch in the park, police only seemed to question “minorities.”

I followed up on this observation with Zurich police, the city ombudswoman, and human rights activists and heard police say there was not a systematic profiling of black men, though Nigerians controlled the drug trade. The park I ate lunch in used to be a hub of drug dealing so maybe the increased presence of police is attributed to that.

The ombudswoman did have a large number of complaints of profiling and unnecessarily long questioning of mainly African males from police. Human rights campaigners complained of a lack of transparency in how Switzerland registered who was being stopped and questioned the most.

And anecdotally, some asylum seekers told me they were subjected to questioning on the street all the time. They claimed that if they complained, they were sometimes physically abused.

I couldn’t and can’t confirm their claims, and thus did not report them, but it does make me watch closer when police seem to single someone out…

Continue reading “Keeping our eyes open”

July 4, 2013January 20, 2017

A “Fourth” Away from “Home”

Editor’s note: Here are some past thoughts about living a Fourth away from home, from 4July2009. A new post will be coming soon.

Regular readers of AnthonyGanzer.com may be surprised by this, given my frequent jaunts to Europe over the last few years, but this is my first “Fourth of July” not on American soil. The “Fourth” has taken its hits as a holiday just as others have. Christmas was adorned with Santa and commercialism, Easter with rabbits and biologically inaccurate eggs, and the “Fourth” has its customary PBS concert specials and sales on charcoal briquettes–the things on which freedom was built, of course. And who can forget the elaborate fireworks displays, and toddlers running around with “harmless” sparklers in the front yard.

But even those subtle remembrances to our country’s founding are absent here in Germany, though a faint sense of patriotism still wafts in the air.

Continue reading “A “Fourth” Away from “Home””

June 30, 2013November 13, 2023

Of falling stones and faith

There is an understandable and appropriate silence about a graveyard. The dead are meant to be left to their stillness. Even outside of a superstition of what might happen if one “wakes the dead,” or that a cemetery may be “holy ground,” I feel there should be a reverence to the memory of the people buried beneath one’s feet. In middle school, my English class took a field trip to an old cemetery near the rural-but-well-endowed California school house. The assignment was to make a pencil etching of a gravestone of our choice, considering dates, names, comments left carved in moss-covered stone. We would take our etchings back to the classroom and then write fiction based on the lives we conjured and assigned to these people resting beneath us. I vaguely remember penning something about “O. Henry,” a Civil War veteran who left behind his lover. The curious thing about this exercise, as inspiring as it may have been to young fiction writers, is that the people buried in that cemetery were real; their lives were lived and paid in full. One walks more carefully when one focuses on who the people were, and not who they are in a conjured world.

Yesterday I walked with my troupe around Saint Martin’s church in the local village in the French region of Picardie. The church was constructed in the 12th century, and it, and its cemetery, are a long way from the glory days.

June 12, 2013January 20, 2017

Vacations and floods

There was a time when journalists played the part of an “ambulance chaser;” ink-stained scoop-hunters would rush to see which building burned; what criminal was nabbed; what neighborhood was afflicted. With technology, newsrooms could selectively send reporters out depending on what seemed most newsworthy on the scanner. I have never been on such a beat where I had to be so on the spot for news. Much of public radio reporting’s strength is in its analysis, and ability to pull back from the news frenzy. Rushing to report is often how mistakes are made, yet time is often of the essence.

Even if I am not often covering the breaking news, I still follow it, even when I am on vacation. On a recent trip to Germany my troupe decided for a quick trip to Dresden, a lovely city in Germany’s East. We happened to arrive in early June just as storms were ripping through Central Europe. I turned on MDR, central German public television, in our hotel room before a planned walk to the River Elbe near the Altstadt (old town.) The Elbe was flooding then, but not as bad as other rivers. Dresden was affected, as were Leipzig and Passau, Prague, and many small villages between. Dresden was affected but not terribly, according to the news. We had just arrived, and a steady stream of emergency vehicles rushed outside our hotel window; a convoy of five German Red Cross vans sped back and forth.

There was only one thing for a vacationing reporter with family to do in such a situation: go for a walk and see what’s happening.

Continue reading “Vacations and floods”

May 19, 2013January 20, 2017

Ode to a bicycle

Many adventures had, but time to roll on…

I may not be the most devoted bicyclist, but I wouldn’t call myself a novice, either. My bike was my only mode of transport in college, for example, meaning come sun, rain, snow, or slush I was often pedaling to work or class. My university was located in a bike-friendly town (Moscow, Idaho) meaning recreational riding was an easy trail map away. Sometimes I would ride the 8 miles to neighboring Pullman, Washington to enjoy the rolling grasslands of the Palouse while thumping techno music seeped from my ear buds.

After it seemed likely we would stay in Europe past the initial Robert Bosch fellowship, I began plotting how I might get my trusty Trek 4300 from storage in Idaho, to my hands in Munich. On a vacation back to the U.S. I had the bike disassembled and boxed, and then we brought it back on the flight. It took some more coordination getting the bike to Zurich, but once it was here and reassembled, it was like I was again a two-wheeled commuter. Zurich has its own hills, and my rides were not always smooth, but it was familiar.

As some may know, my current employer World Radio Switzerland is being sold and privatized. As I am a public radio reporter, and not interested in commercial radio in the Geneva region, my family is looking for jobs and a next step. We don’t know where we are headed just yet, but we know a move is coming. This is why my trusty Trek had to go.

Continue reading “Ode to a bicycle”

April 19, 2013August 1, 2018

WRS wins 5 Edward R. Murrow Awards!

I am proud to report my current employer, World Radio Switzerland, was awarded five regional Edward R. Murrow awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association in the U.S.! The awards are some of the most prized in broadcast journalism.

World Radio Switzerland won in the international category, Region 14, for a small market station. “Small market” is defined (under one description I found) as one serving an audience of fewer than 1.4 million people. WRS’s main market is Geneva, served by FM, and has about 190,000 residents. It has listeners elsewhere in the country through web streaming, and digital radio (which is supposed to replace FM at some point.)

Most of the awards were for my feature work, including a series from Cairo and special reporting on Swiss banks and transparency. I am proud and honored to have brought these awards to the station, and am excited by even being considered for national Murrow awards (to be decided out of the pool of regional winners.)

Continue reading “WRS wins 5 Edward R. Murrow Awards!”