Noon Berlin — Wednesday, March 14, 2007

I am going to cut just to the chase on this entry because I am quite excited. I just met with Matt Schofield, bureau chief for McClatchy newspapers. We met at the Charlottenburg S-Bahn stop — I figured he was American by the Harvard T-shirt he was wearing. He was such a nice person and each day I am convinced more and more that some of the best people are journalists. I arranged for this meeting and another one I am having this afternoon via e-mail — I wanted to speak with some foreign correspondents while I was in Berlin to get a taste of international journalism. Luckily for me, these meetings worked and I am in shock at my luck. Matt and I talked about U.S. newspapers cutting their foreign offices. This year is terrible and U.S. papers are in a panic. He told me, however, that it seems as if European media sources aren’t having the same problem. Because the U.S. was so used to having historically about 20 percent profit margins, once it dips, media corporations go into a panic. In Europe, it isn’t so. We also spoke about how it is sad that there are less and less foreign correspondents, truly sacrificing the quality of coverage. He told me of how he was embedded in Iraq and his thoughts on it. That was quite interesting, as I’ve been reading a Helen Thomas book and she weighs her thoughts on the practice as well. Our discussion was amazing. Absolutely amazing.