Personal site of journalist, baker, and storyteller Tony Ganzer.
I’ve decided to step away from the microphone in Northeast Ohio. Thank you for your kindness as I tried to bring my approach to afternoon radio. I will have more on my future in the coming weeks, but this is my final segment to air 17 December 2021, remembering some of the people who trusted me with their stories over the years. Please stay safe.
Bread seems to be having a renaissance: amid the coronavirus pandemic, people seem to be buying bread (if they can find it), flour, and yeast at unprecedented rates. I’ve been a bread baking and journalism evangelist for a good while, and I was honored to talk little about my journey so far, and about home bread baking on the radio recently.
I was a guest (not the host!) on the Sound of Ideas with my friend Mike McIntyre. I transcribed some of my bread thoughts for you, in case you missed the show. If you have any other ideas, please get in touch!
Also, please check out my book: Kneading Journalism: Essays on baking bread and breaking down the news!
Continue reading “Thoughts on a bread baking renaissance in the pandemic”
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.)
Editor’s Note: This is a personal narrative and commentary about German public radio, and multiculturalism therein, based on my experience in the last years. I offer my observations, suggestions, and hopes, perhaps to prompt further thought or consideration from journalists and newsreaders alike. Warning..this is a long one! A version of this is found in my book Kneading Journalism.
“You have no idea what you are talking about, Luka*.“ The small Greek colleague pushed a harshly dismissive comment toward Luka, incensing something primal in the latter. I had not yet met this colleague, after all I was just considered a Praktikant, an intern, a visitor, a stranger and kept more or less to myself unless prompted. I sat at the back corner of the meeting table in a German editorial meeting.
“How do you know what I have an idea about?” Luka shot back in his thick accent—Bosnian or Hungarian, I wasn’t quite sure. The other members of this multi-cultural editorial staff shifted their eyes nervously, some chuckled, not sure what to do. I stopped moving all-together, frozen in a pose for observation: my posture slouched, my chin buried in my hands, my eyes fixed. A discussion about refugees from Eastern Europe quickly turned heated.
“You don’t know what the refugees need. You don’t know who they are, or what they are doing.” The Greek colleague looked sure of himself, almost taunting the situation to escalate. A soft winter light shone in through the windows behind me, and story ideas pinned to a tack board fluttered slightly.
Continue reading “Analysis: The state of journalism and multiculturalism in German public radio”