Thirty Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall

On Nov. 9, 1989, the world watched in amazement as East Germans streamed through and over the Berlin Wall to cross into West Berlin, with Berliners from both sides of the city celebrating atop the Wall. The collapse of this iconic symbol of the East-West divide was not an isolated incident but the culmination of a series of political upheavals throughout the region that year. Taken together, they marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet empire and the Cold War. Journalists who covered those historic events and their aftermath will share their experiences with OPC members on Oct. 30 and offer insights into the future of Europe and global security.

The program is open to all. The OPC invites any journalists who covered Europe and the Soviet Union to come and reconnect with former colleagues and friends.

Panelists include:

Carroll Bogert is president of The Marshall Project, a nonprofit media organization covering criminal justice and immigration issues in the United States. Bogert was previously deputy executive director at Human Rights Watch, running its award-winning global media operations. Before joining Human Rights Watch in 1998, Bogert spent twelve years as a foreign correspondent for Newsweek in China, Southeast Asia, and the Soviet Union.

John Daniszewski became vice president for standards and editor-at-large for The Associated Press in July 2016 after more than a decade leading its international news department as international editor, senior managing editor and vice president for international news. Prior to that, he spent 20 years as a reporter, editor and correspondent for both AP and the Los Angeles Times. He has worked in more than 70 countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia, including postings to Warsaw, Johannesburg, Cairo, Moscow, Baghdad and London.

Jonathan Kapstein was assigned to cover the fall of the Berlin Wall while Brussels regional bureau chief for Business Week magazine. In a 2016 news interview with him available on YouTube, Kapstein highlighted the long-term impact of that epochal event. During his 22 years overseas for Business Week he already had been bureau chief in South America, Canada, Italy, and Africa. Kapstein earned the OPC award for best reporting from Latin America for a cover story on Brazil and shared other OPC citations ranging from coverage of the bloody and now largely forgotten Iran-Iraq Gulf War to the still relevant issue of how the European Union is transforming the continent. He was president of the Press Club Brussels Europe prior to moving home to the US three years ago after 48 years overseas.

Andrew Nagorski was born in Scotland to Polish parents, moved to the United States as an infant and has rarely stopped moving since. He is an award-winning journalist and author who spent more than three decades as a foreign correspondent and editor for Newsweek. He served as the magazine’s bureau chief in Hong Kong, Rome, Bonn, Berlin, Warsaw, and two tours of duty in Moscow, first in the early 1980s and then from 1995 to 1996. In 1982, the Soviet government, angry about his enterprising reporting, expelled him from the country. His most recent book is 1941: The Year Germany Lost the War. Visit www.andrewnagorski.com

Moderator: Deidre Depke is the executive producer of The Takeaway, a morning radio news program co-created and co-produced by Public Radio International and WNYC. She joined the show after serving as managing editor of Marketplace, the business and finance public radio program. She has been a reporter and editor in New York for 25 years, working as senior news editor at Business Week magazine, as the foreign editor and an assistant managing editor for Newsweek magazine and as the editor of Newsweek.com and The Daily Beast.

The program will include a slideshow of photos of the Berlin Wall by OPC member Peter Turnley, whose photos have been on the cover of Newsweek magazine more than 40 times. He has won numerous awards, including the OPC’s Olivier Rebbot Award for best photographic reporting from abroad in 1989 for the Newsweek story “Ceausescu, the fall of a dictator.” Visit www.peterturnley.com