Members of the current affairs series EUROPEAN JOURNAL discuss its 25th anniversary in the United States

APT recently interviewed EUROPEAN JOURNAL correspondents, Cathy Smith and Dr. Alexander Kudacheff, along with Greg Fitzgerald, U.S. director of marketing and distribution.

Tell us a about EUROPEAN JOURNAL and why it stands out as such a unique program in the American television market.

Cathy: It is a great program which really gives an insight into what’s going on in Europe. I reckon if you watch the program every week, 52 weeks of the year (because we are on every single week of the year), you would get an amazing insight into what is going on in Europe. And, what I realize from being here [in the United States], there is such a huge appetite for news and current affairs from Europe. We feel as though we are really plugging in a gap. It is fantastic to hear everybody’s thoughts on the program here – to realize that we have such an eager audience out there.

Greg: The important point, too, [is that] while EUROPEAN JOURNAL does focus on a lot of issues, it is not so much a news program. Deutsche Well does offer news as a straight newscast in other parts of its schedule. EUROPEAN JOURNAL goes a lot deeper and also is a very personal show that does a lot of profiles. You will see people ­– it is really a program about people. [For instance],Cathy just finished a program on Romania where they spent a whole half hour in Romania on five different features.

What was your approach to this show on Romania?

Cathy: We were trying to give a profile of the country – not just the political aspects, but also to really get to meet people. We had one piece at the end of the program on a search for Count Dracula and another piece at the beginning of the program where we were looking at a place called Sibiu, a city which has been completely revolutionized because this one man at the center of the city – the mayor – has an incredible vision for how he wants the city. You are looking at the lighter side of life and also the more serious side of life and bringing it all together as one to try to give some sense of what Romania is like as a country – because people don’t know. We didn’t know before we got there.

Greg: One of the striking pieces in this show … they went deep into the coal mines – it is a very old, outdated mining system. The country is still, some of it, living under the old East-Block mentality and economy, but some of it is coming out. And, it is just looking at how these people are going to survive economically.

Cathy: The reason we did the piece is because, in January, Bulgaria and Romania are the next two countries to join the European Union. So there will be 27 countries in the EU. It has been very controversial because they’re both countries that a lot of people say shouldn’t yet be members because they don’t feel that they are economically or socially ready. But they have been accepted and the idea is that they will grow within the EU. So, we were just trying to give a sense as to whether the country was ready to join or not.

Greg: And, this is when I go back to [to the fact that] this is not a news show. Usually, there is a good justification as to why, at a specific time, we are doing a certain report – there is always a reason for a particular show. It is a news-driven program, but they are not news stories. We give stations – because we know of production needs at stations – a 14-day window on this program. We want them to use it as soon as they can because, in some cases, there could be a couple of pieces that could grow moldy around the edges if major world events take place. It is a good balance. You could not use this program six months from now – it would just look ridiculous, but you can air it a week from now. So, stations seem to like it and that is why many will place it within a news block or within a current affairs block. I think it is a good balance for them.

In February, it will be EUROPEAN JOURNAL 's 25th anniversary year in America. How do you think your program has changed or updated in that time period?

Alexander: I am now responsible nearly nine years for the program. In these nine years, I myself have learned many things about Europe – about the people in Europe, about the culture in Europe, about what happens within the show. [In the program about] Romania … I loved the gypsy [segment]. We show a minority, but we show a minority which is working in traditional [jobs] like black smiths. It was very interesting to see how people react to them, how they try to find their own way through life.

Of course, there was a time when we were a little bit more involved in political affairs. Then again, there was a time when we were not so involved in political affairs. In the moment, we try to find a mix between political, economical, cultural, and societal problems.

If I reduce it to what my opinion is … on Thursday, when we plan for the next week, [the program] is to be as interesting as possible to the audience. It may be five pieces on political affairs because it is necessary. Sometime we are doing only one or one and half [political pieces]. We are always trying to show the impact of what we are saying to the people – to the normal people, the average people. We never show talking heads. This we do on the normal [news] program … But this is not our primary purpose.

Greg: A piece seen or heard today – it has a shelf life, a week, two weeks. It’s got to be lasting.

A lot of [the program] has changed in the way that Europe has changed. For the first, certainly, six or seven years of the program, the program really couldn’t wander into these countries like it does now. I mean, when the wall came down and the East Block disappeared and it all became a part of the same conglomeration … now, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia – all these countries are Europe and it really changed the way the program is shaped, too.

Is there one show that stands out during your tenure that covered a significant moment in European history?

Alexander: Of course there was the show in ’89 [chronicling the fall of the Berlin Wall], but I wasn’t responsible, so I am not really able to say what was done. But, if I can speak about the last ten years, there was first enlargement – very important, this was the greatest transformation of Europe. Second, we have common currency – the Euro. Third, Europe was involved in one and a half wars – in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Not the old Europe but the new Europe. We have a constitution which failed. First the constitution was a great success and the failure is something you have to acknowledge, too. The new countries are something that is always very interesting to us – we are always learning about Poland, Estonia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. We have learned many things about the people, the culture and identities of the countries, and this is, of course, coming in the inner circle of Europe. We are not only covering the European Union, though, we are covering Switzerland, Norway, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, too, if they are necessary to speak about. We are looking wherever we find this is maybe a European problem we have to talk about and show how it is impacting. But, for the last ten years, in many aspects, is a great revolution for many countries. And now we are looking at how they are coming together – the new Europeans and the old Europeans. And, it is quite interesting for me that the new Europeans are quite old fashioned compared to the old Europeans. That means you have an old Catholic tradition in Poland that you don’t have in Italy even though they have the pope sitting. And we have, for example, in Estonia, we can say that this is a country that looks like America in their will do anything, their optimistic way to look at life. Then we have Slovenia, a country from former Yugoslavia, don’t forget Kosovo, this was the first real European war headed by NATO with the support of the U.S., but it was more or less a European war.

In the last ten years, many things have changed and now they are trying to come together. But I am quite year certain that the European Union of 27 [countries] will have some problems – perhaps with Turkey and the Balkan states. The next 25 years will be a process to come together really, and to build a union which, for now, is only on paper.

How does this program differ from a typical American news show? Greg: I think one of things, which distinguishes, actually APT and EUROPEAN JOURNAL, from say how Americans would do the program … I don’t think ABC or NBC or CBS or CNN could do this show because you are talking [about coverage] from Dublin all the way to Moscow, dozens of different languages, different cultures, different rules and different regulations. This show sends out five different crews a week to cover five different, very deep stories and comes back and does an amazing job. I think if you try to send out American crews to do that you would come back with a very different story. You really have to be in the central part of Europe to understand all of this. You just could not plop an American editor in the middle of Europe with his American crews and say go out and do this story. They wouldn’t have a clue how to start. It is from a European perspective and that is what distinguishes EUROPEAN JOURNAL. Our slogan is “From the Heart of Europe.” Because it really is, in terms of cultural relevance, what Duetsche Well can bring to the story and EUROPEAN JOURNAL is really the program that can do that the best.

Why do you think your program will resonate with public television audiences in America? Greg: They are the most open and, certainly, the hungriest TV audience looking for cultural and current affairs programs that go deeper than CNN, FOX , NBC and such. Public television is one of the very few resources – beyond maybe print media and public radio – that ever goes beyond “squawk box.” And, public television viewers do much more traveling – if you look at the demographics – than non-public television viewers. They have been to a lot of the places we cover so that really resonates with the viewer and I think stations understand that, too.

How do you interact with the public television stations in America? Greg: Ultimately, we are flexible. We made some production changes and the way the show looks has changed in the past couple of years. A lot of that came from feedback from stations. We are always open to that – we love to hear from stations. It has been a great experience for Alexander and Cathy to come [to Fall Marketplace]. They sit in their bureau and put together the show not always knowing all the time what their broadcast partners and viewers think.

Alexander: We have to find a balance because we are doing the program of course for the normal program and we do it for the American audience. For me, it is very important. Deutsche Welle is a part of the public TV and radio and Germany and [American public television stations] are a natural partner for us.

Cathy: It was certainly worth flying 4000 miles across the Atlantic to come here. It really has been an eye-opener. Sometimes, we do feel we are working into a vacuum when you don’t meet the viewers and you don’t meet the people using your program. To come here and meet the programmers and people from public television stations who really understand the program and give us feedback from the viewers … it has been really fascinating from that point of you.

* This interview is available on APTonline.org for uses that are related to the marketing and/or promotion of this program (via program guides and/or Web sites). No part of this interview may be used relating to any product or service, other than the program.