…i would just disappear like that? no way. i am back home - as always contemplating change. the biggest change however has happened inside me. with every single step you take you understand more who you are and what you want to become. i have met so many different people over the past few weeks/months. what drives us, you, me? is it the love for life, the feeling back inside your head that there is more out there, that each and every one of us has the potential to change this place - always for the better? this is about life, the things we can, will & must change. being a journalist i can tell you about change, and yes, one day i will make it happen.
But more than 40,000 newspaper journalists are still cranking away, and I’m grateful to be among them, having vowed to ride out the tsunami until they pry the company-owned laptop from my cold, ink-stained hands.
I am heartbroken, but in a good way. It’s been what I had dreamed it up to be. It changed the world, my world. And while some experiences in my life had to be long gone for me to understand them, this time I am enjoying things while they are happening. I breathe the world around me because I understand that my time is running out. And while my future is - once again - unclear to me, I do not doubt that there will be beauty. I am waving this world goodbye as there is another one waiting for me back home in Austria. Willkommen neue Zeiten.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who’ll do it.
Whenever I’m abroad sooner or later there will be this beat of life I am slowly synchronizing with. The older I get, the longer it takes to wipe my social self and adapt to new surroundings but eventually it will happen. There will be this feeling of finally having arrived. I watched the sun set on St. Pete Beach and slowly made my way home.
Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night
Streetlight people, living just to find emotion
Hiding, somewhere in the night
The good thing about life is, that it gives you a new chance day by day. A chance to learn, to develop. The bad thing is, that few people choose that path. And that those who do will meet resistance, opposition and antagonism. I am not sure yet which category I belong to, but I can feel the resistance rise. It’s up to me now - it always was.
When I’m deep inside of me
don’t be too concerned.
I won’t as for nothin’ while I’m gone.
But when I want sincerity
tell me where else can I turn.
Because you’re the one I depend upon.
I know it will be over some day. And it will probably be that day when I realize what this, me being here in the States - somehow living a dream - really means and meant to me. Lately things happened too fast to put them in whatever order. I try to see, feel and learn, remember names and places. The hard thing in life is to understand which things you want to keep close to your heart and which not. Do I miss home? Yes I do. But not for the places or things, it’s the people that make home home. Home is where your heart is they say. In that case home is wherever we can come together. No names, you all know who you are. And yes, right now I miss you.
Pieces of my life have a tendency to fall into the right places at the right time - even if at last minute. Two weeks before I left for Brussels, I didn’t even have an apartment there, two weeks later I found myself in a 200 sqm loft at 500 Euro a month. Keep your fingers crossed, but up until now St. Petersburg hasn’t been any difference - things worked out so smoothly, I can hardly believe it (not to mention the HUGE Dodge Charger the nice lady of Hungarian heritage talked me into, because being a guy, 28 and in Florida I needed a “man’s car” - bye bye PT Cruiser).
My first day at work was - well - overwhelming. I met about 5.642 new people and I couldn’t name one who wasn’t postive about me joining the St. Petes Times for my 6 weeks stint. At least nobody showed opposing signs. Which is, yes, good. Actually they have been patient and professional - listening to the tons of questions I (quite naturally) had in stock.
Truth to be told I was really nervous on my first day there - but my sudden doubts (yes, I do get them sometimes), were more than unfounded. Okay, back to sleep - I still have an hour.
I don’t remember when I started thinking or better dreaming of it - as the glass facade rose in front of me I kind of had to pinch myself for being there and for still not understanding that yes indeed it was me. The New York Times to me always seemed like a myth, a building full of incredibly smart people - a lot smarter than I would probably ever be - doing an incredibly smart newspaper. Time of course passed way to quick and as we poured out of the editorial meeting I felt kind of sorry I had to leave so fast. And while I might have left for today it sparked another dream, another goal: next time, I might just as well come to stay.
I believe.
PS: Bill I can not thank you enough for giving me a little more insight to the Times & David thanks for preparing me for Florida.
After nearly ten hours on a plane and another three in the queue I was finally allowed to put my feet on american soil. “Don’t expect anything else than the great depression”, we were warned today by the people at the International Center for Journalists referring to the mood in American newsrooms. Five minutes later an email from my host-newspaper, the St. Petersburg Times, updated me on today’s Pulitzer prices. They had won two. Yes, we have arrived in the middle of a crisis that puts it all to jeopardy, the existence of newspapers, my very own career path. But as they said in the briefing as well: Every crisis bares a chance. I am here to make use of that chance, even only after a day spent here, talking to political advisers and people from the State Department I know this is my very own battleground. I am up for the challenge.
I looked out over the ice, player’s scattered everywhere celebrating Klagenfurt’s 29th title. They had won it in style, in a true final game the audience holding its breath while the seconds ticked away and the team held on to a narrow 2-1 lead. I stood there and looked at the people I had been playing with for years and wondered how it must have felt to be one of them, be part of it. As a journalist you’re trained to never become a part of anything - because it distorts your view on reality they tell you. Somewhere along the road, we were split, the people over there holding the cup and I the journalist who once aspired to become a professional hockey player. I know that this is what I was destined to become one day, that it is the plans someone somewhere had drafted for me - but for that one split-second I wished I was one of them again. Because, even as you grow older the love of the game never changes.
some things are never true at first light, even if they seem to be. as time rushes by and i am holding my breath i try to understand the things that have happened in the past week(s). life can be one crazy thing, always changing whenever you are about to get a grip on it.
There’s those moments when I figure why I am working for a newspaper: There’s no more joy in life than creating, day after day. There is the blank sheet of paper and you are the one to fill it.
When the ICFJ asked me to send them a list of newspapers I would be interested completing my fellowship at I sent them a list of five (in a random order):
a.) The New York Times
b.) The Washington Post
c.) The St. Petersburg Times
d.) The Miami Herald
e.) The Wall Street Journal
The New York Times just did a sale-and-lease-back of its office tower in downtown Manhattan to make it through the year, the Washington Post just noted a 77 percent decrease of its turnover according to German weekly “Die Welt” and the Miami Herald today announced that it would cut 19 percent of its workforce accumulating to 175 people losing their jobs. So basically my choices have been cut down to three papers, the St. Pete Times and the WSJ being my favorites for their (up until now) solid economic situation as well as for their reputation.
Which leads me to the point of this post: I am 27 and thus spent a good part of my life reading news online. For 6 years now I have been working as a print journalist. While I am still an avid reader of blogs and online news I have never believed more in print than today. I know this will get some readers to chuckle, but I firmly believe that printed news, in one way or another, will always be around in one way or another. So from my point of view publishers hoping for salvation by switching to an online-only edition will inevitably fail. Why? Because up until now - aside from the usual ad-revenue - hardly any of them have come up with a model that will allow them to keep readers while making substantial amounts of money. Generally you could say that in an online world where “free” as in “free content” almost always seems only a click away readers are gone faster than you can say “pay me”. If you are not depressed enough by now, here’s a list compiled by Time Magazine - 10 majors US newspapers who could go down next. However there is hope, though it may take some time for the sun to rise again:
There is, however, a striking and somewhat odd fact about this crisis. Newspapers have more readers than ever. Their content, as well as that of newsmagazines and other producers of traditional journalism, is more popular than ever — even (in fact, especially) among young people.
The problem is that fewer of these consumers are paying. Instead, news organizations are merrily giving away their news. According to a Pew Research Center study, a tipping point occurred last year: more people in the U.S. got their news online for free than paid for it by buying newspapers and magazines. Who can blame them? Even an old print junkie like me has quit subscribing to the New York Times, because if it doesn’t see fit to charge for its content, I’d feel like a fool paying for it.
This is not a business model that makes sense. Perhaps it appeared to when Web advertising was booming and every half-sentient publisher could pretend to be among the clan who “got it” by chanting the mantra that the ad-supported Web was “the future.” But when Web advertising declined in the fourth quarter of 2008, free felt like the future of journalism only in the sense that a steep cliff is the future for a herd of lemmings.
It’s been a couple of days filled with thoughts and talks about my future. Today I stumbled across a more or less mind-tearing post concerning the future of some people at “The New York Times”. Looks like “re-training” is the current crisis’ flavor of choice when it comes to the topic of euphemism. Still I neither believe that the web is or ever will be a replacement for ink, paper or the feeling of turning pages nor will going web-only miraculously re-fill publisher’s pockets. But in times when everything is at stake and CBA’s are softened up on a daily basis, newspapers and publishers seem to be more than eager to jump the bandwagon on the cost-side without ever taking into account that the only real asset a newspaper has is a talented, hard-working and loyal work-force. Yes, us the journalists.
Back in New York I had to see a doctor - nothing bad basically I just had caught a mild food poisoning in South Africa - to re-fill the antibiotics I had accidentally trashed back in SA. Well I chose the nearest walk-in clinic, sat down and waited. After about an hour it was my turn, temperature, blood-pressure and pulse were measured and jotted down, then the nurse disappeared for about 40 minutes which left me to wait in a more or less small and anonymous room. Not exactly the thing you are used to if you have been enjoying the virtues (they really are) of the (which I now believe) absolutely fabulous Austrian health care system. Anyways a doc gave me a good look for about five minutes then wrote down the very same medication I had taken before and left me with a bill of 170 dollars plus 60more bucks for the antibiotics I had to pick up. Which brings me to this more than enjoyable blog I discovered today, follow on and visit Dr. Dood.
Ever since I got word I am going to the USA and will finally get my shot there, there were those little thoughts sitting at the back of my head. What if? What if I fail in some way or another? Self-confidence has never been an issue at this end of the keyboard but now - what if? And then I read this. The passion that is in his words most likely is the best answer to my questions: I am only human and eventually I will make the occasional mistake. But: I am alive, I have this big thing in front of me and deep inside as of today I am a very thankful, very happy person. I love Astrid, I love my life and the way someone upstairs is pushing this cart into the right direction.
Over the past months I have closely followed Mario Garcia’s blog. Arguably one of the best known newspaper designers in the world (and of course the one that also re-vamped the “Kleine Zeitung” I work for) his musings are interesting and entertaining at the same time. However as times are difficult for any kind of media, Mario has come up with a few interesting thoughts on re-igniting a fruitful co-existence of both on- and offline media. Quite honestly I have never been a fan of “we’ll-just-give-content-away-for-free-and-hope-for-ad-sales”-strategies that up until know haven’t been turning up too much money - at least to my knowledge.
Though I am not aware of any short-term solution for this problem, I still insist on publishers changing the way they put their websites to work. Honestly, I firmly believe in changing things all over rather than let evolution have its way. The reason is simple: While evolution is a great thing in terms of adapting to a changing world and its circumstances there is one thing we should never forget about - it will take some of us down for good. And I neither would want to be one of those who goes down nor work for any of the dinosaurs who just didn’t see things coming.
I don’t recall ever having a day that felt like it would change my life but this one did. When I got the call and they told me I had been selected for the 2009 US-Austrian Journalism Exchange all I could come up with was silence and a few uttered words. Then the call ended and I got up and told Astrid, that one person who not only had told me to apply but always genuinely believed that they’d select me. So starting on April 20th I will once again cross the big pond, this time however to live and work in the U.S. for six weeks, working on the staff of newspaper there (more on this later) as well as reporting back for the place I grew up at - at least in journalistic-terms - the Kleine Zeitung. It’s been a fabulous day and the best about it was: Astrid showing that the way she loves me, the way we are as of today is special. Because it allows her to let me go and still hold on to me. And there’s one more thing I’d like to add even if borrowed it from Mr. Rockefeller:
“I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.”
1.) express trains are not always express trains.
2.) children always find a way to play.
3.) smile and you’ll get a smile back.
4.) nyc: full heart, empty bank account
5.) start spreading the news…
American supermarkts will in some way or another always stay a miracle to me - today I bougth a more or less basic breakfast while checking out I watched in awe as the girl behind the counter put each and every single item in a thin plastic bag, knocking the count up to five before I asked her to put them all in one bag. She gave me the look people throw at sexual offenders in front of courthouses and proceeded with the next customer. Needless to say I did the re-packing myself. So much for a country that has people contemplating their carbon footprints.
Sometimes it’s nice to be out of the country. Election day for example. I normally always put my democratic right to vote to use, but my state Carinthia sometimes feels like a hopeless case. Evene when our far-right governor Mr. Haider decided to pay his maker a visit after an alcohol-injected joyride that found its end at the curb of a local road people did neither understand nor wanted to see what he and his peers had done to this state, this beautiful place over the past years. On the other hands there’s a saying that goes along to the lines of people getting the government they deserve. Anyway, candles were lit and Mr. Haiders party was not only shocked but visibly shaken by losing their political and ideological mastermind, not to say that people that would come even close to his intellectual capacity were scarce around the BZÖ (his party), some would even like to say there were, well, none. Which brings me back to the joyful events of the past nights, when suddenly, months after his death, in a more than “spontanous outbreak” (yes, please do note the irony..) suddenly candles are lit again in front of his office building. Sheer coincidence has it, that tomorrow voters will elect our new state parliament. In his lifetime Mr. Haider didn’t exactly made a reputation for his soft-handed approach on thins, but somehow I believe this would even make him literally turn in his grave. (Picture by Georg Holzer)
Update: Word has it, that the “ocean of emotional light” only lasted for a couple of hours as somebody seems to have given order to clean things up. Oh the joy of the internet.
on election night i was at the u.s. embassy in vienna, a colleague from “die presse” had gotten us in and in some way or another we were there when history was made and obama won. being here in new york right now, it feels people are basically asking the second coming of him, i have seen t-shirts, posters and the bakery around the corner is selling his books. funny enough it feels like in the hard times to come people made a desperate but nevertheless finally right choice and while he’s not my president or for that matter in any short-term affecting my life i truly believe in what he say: yes we can - we the people, mankind.
after the lights went out i felt into a deep numb kind of sleep, outside were the police sirens, the cars cutting through harlem, the big city sounds, new york’s heartbeat. being back here is always like taking a trip to another world, which in fact it is. as of today i completed my application for a program that could bring me back here (or for that matter anywhere in the US) - and i can hardly describe how much, how dearly i hope they consider me for it. believing in god is easy, believing in yourself suddenly looks a whole lot harder. still
It’s been way beyond what i hoped for. and while I have traveled a fair bit in my life, south africa still managed to impress me in more way I could have ever imagined. however (and will I will write about this later in greater detail) what impressed me most is the simple fact that a country that was once split by the apartheid regime has somehow managed to forgive while never forgetting. Being offline for a while helped me understanding - whenever you have a chance read Nelson Mandela’s biography “a long walk to freedom”, it re-enforced my believes in the simple fact that a strong honest mind even of one single person can change the world.
Sometimes I am - once again - that little boy sitting there in the room, listening to the Boss, dreaming of the shoulds, coulds, woulds, cans and cannots that this world has offered to me. About walking away, coming back - always on the run, a restless soul.
I’d rather be someone who challenges himself, the people around him and life it-very-self than dying a dull old man who hasn’t added life to his days but only days to his life.
nearly 10 years ago a teenage boy anxiously walked towards the glass cube down at the waterfront. wandering through the rooms history shone down on him, the instruments, the records - it all was there, right in front of him. hours had passed and when he sat down on the floor next to the large windows, the sunrays broke through the clouds and filled the room with light. there were the words “she stares off alone into the night with the eyes of one who hates for just being born - for all the shut down strangers and hot rod angels, rumbling through this promised land.” the song was on repeat. an hour must have passed until he stood up. it took him a decade to understand that it was a perfect moment, back there in cleveland, ohio. the boy was me.
Letting someone go, even only for a trip takes a lot of trust. I’m asking for it because I do believe I’m worth it. I need to go there by myself walk the streets, float. I need it because it’s the only way I can take a little of my dream home.
It’s been a crazy-cold weekend full of work. and still I enjoyed it, I enjoyed discussing and sharing ideas with my colleague A. I enjoyed being out there, meeting people, feeling alive despite the obvious lack of sleep. And beyond all that my eyes were opened to new things, new perspectives. Sometimes it feels I just need to go out and grab some fresh air every now and then - life will flow into me all by itself.
in january i wondered where friendliness had gone.
in february it was all about the greater game.
in march we went to look for america.
in april my thoughts loomed in the big yellow house.
in may, as summer rose, i felt free.
in june it was short nights and long days.
in july my brother made me feel old.
in august we built ourselves a home.
in september i went to a place i had never left.
in october things were true at first light.
in november i understood what getting up means.
in december it was once again, about believing.
2008 felt like a long journey - inside and out. it was about “we” and “us” and a little less about “i” and “me”. it was a year full of making up new dreams and going to places where i had left my old ones. it was a year of commitments, of making decisions for the future, of building ourselves and the family we will hopefully be one future day a home. it was a year of doubts, personally and professionally, but also a year of love given, being given and shared. which after all - makes me believe. do you=
sometimes you wish for something to happen so badly that it almost feels real. and when that reality you made up yourself is taken from you, it hurts even more.
i have never bought into charities - meaning giving money to kind of ease your mind (at least that’s the way i see it most of the times). today i however i finally made up my mind to give at least a small amount to - wikipedia. it’s probably the singles best thing on the web and though it’s validity has been the subject of much uproar in the scientific community i still believe that it is the single most educating thing i know - and one worth donating to.
It seems to be the perfect day for talks. I just had another with someone whom I consider my life-long mentor. It was about me, work, life. And about the one thing that really counts: People want to live. They have every right to and doing good things to them will have good things follow up. Have I done a good thing today? No, but there’s 10 hours left. And then 24 and another 24 and another 24.
All this time
You’ve had it in you
You just sometimes need a push
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