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 believe.