DW Traineeship: The New Bilingual, Multimedia, Hands-On Training Program

Deutsche Welle is the only broadcaster in Germany that will soon be offering a bilingual, multimedia journalism traineeship that prepares up-and-coming journalists for international reporting for television, online and radio. The core of the new program is a set of seminar blocks held in English and German that make up one-third of the 18-month traineeship.

"The traineeship will ensure the high quality of our news coverage.As Germany's international broadcaster, we rely on young journalists who speak a number of languages, who feel at home in a variety of cultures, and who are actively involved in helping shape Deutsche Welle's new multimedia approach," says DWDirector General Peter Limbourg.

Calls for applications for the new journalism traineeship will go out once a year and Deutsche Welle will increase the number of trainees from 10 to 12. The new program gets underway on May 1, 2015.

Applications are now being accepted until October 31, 2014.(http://www.dw.de/dw-akademie/traineeship/s-12130)

"DW's traineeship is like a trip around the world in 18 months," says Ramón García-Ziemsen, the new head of Deutsche Welle's Journalism Training Department. "Our trainees work in a number of languages with international colleagues, getting the opportunity to learn first hand about different cultures." García-Ziemsen was appointed to the new position in August 2014 after working as a journalism lecturer at the Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, Colombia. Prior to that, he headed DW-Radio's culture desk.

García-Ziemsen is coordinating the new DW traineeship together with Michael Karhausen, a seasoned television journalist and media trainer.

An additional feature of the new program is a variety of internships with DW's editorial departments in Bonn and Berlin as well as an internship at one of Deutsche Welle's foreign bureaus in Brussels, Moscow or Washington D.C. Trainees will also complete an internship with a media organization of their choice. In addition they will learn more about radio during a one-month internship with DW training partner Deutschlandradio. Trainees from Deutschlandradio will get a chance to hone their skills in multimedia production at DW.

Deutsche Welle has been training young journalists for more than 40 years. The newly designed traineeship combines the former traineeship program for native German speakers with the program for native speakers of other Deutsche Welle broadcast languages.