For two to four weeks, German journalists are each guests in the editorial departments in other countries. In return, they are visited by their exchange partners. They write about their experiences in the new city for the host medium and for their readers at home.From November 2012 until April 2014, the focus is on Europe. So far, twelve online and newspaper reporters wrote from Düsseldorf, Budapest, Berlin, Riga, Bonn, Vilnius, Neustadt, Ljubljana, Freiburg, Trieste and Athens.
Europa, wie geht’s? (Europe, how are you?) is the focus of the journalists’ investigations. How well do we really know Europe? What unites, what divides us Europeans? Are the clichés that we cling to about other countries and their inhabitants true?
The Close-Up exchange programme will then continue in October 2013. The participating partner media and journalists and the cities in which they live will be announced shortly.
During their stay, the journalists become familiar with the everyday routines in their host offices; they investigate, observe and write about their impressions on location. Their perspectives are fresh because they are on unfamiliar ground. They open our eyes to everyday situations and also put subjects to paper that we do not hear about very often. The articles produced during the course of the project will be printed a few times each week in the host medium and, in some cases, in their home medium as well.
In this way, articles from Germany and other European countries convey a cultural exchange from two perspectives: thinking about one’s own and about the other European culture – about similarities and differences.
The Close-Up exchange programme was launched in 2008 with newspaper reporters from Germany and Islamic countries. It is taking place now for the sixth time. “It was an intense and eventful time. My German colleagues gave me a good insight into the editorial process, allowed me to contribute and were open to my ideas. I am taking lots of new contacts with me. The differences to the working routine in Budapest are not all that great, just we in Hungary have less financial means at our disposal and therefore fewer opportunities,” reports Andrea Lukács, editor at the Hungarian news portal Hvg.hu in Budapest following her stay. She was a guest editor of the Handelsblatt Online in Düsseldorf for three weeks in November 2012.
During their stay, the journalists become familiar with the everyday routines in their host offices; they investigate, observe and write about their impressions on location. Their perspectives are fresh because they are on unfamiliar ground. They open our eyes to everyday situations and also put subjects to paper that we do not hear about very often. The articles produced during the course of the project will be printed a few times each week in the host medium and, in some cases, in their home medium as well.
In this way, articles from Germany and other European countries convey a cultural exchange from two perspectives: thinking about one’s own and about the other European culture – about similarities and differences.
Photo Gallery “Close-Up” 2009 – 2012
The Close-Up exchange programme was launched in 2008 with newspaper reporters from Germany and Islamic countries. It is taking place now for the sixth time. “It was an intense and eventful time. My German colleagues gave me a good insight into the editorial process, allowed me to contribute and were open to my ideas. I am taking lots of new contacts with me. The differences to the working routine in Budapest are not all that great, just we in Hungary have less financial means at our disposal and therefore fewer opportunities,” reports Andrea Lukács, editor at the Hungarian news portal Hvg.hu in Budapest following her stay. She was a guest editor of the Handelsblatt Online in Düsseldorf for three weeks in November 2012.
