The Flying Carpet Blog is back after a long break. But that doesn’t mean that time has stood still. Let me give you a tour of where my professional life has taken me – including links to my work. I will also backdate a few blog entries in the coming weeks.

Transatlantic Trade

I followed the TTIP negotiations throughout 2013. Today, I am proud to announce that I will receive a media award from the Johanna Quandt Foundation for a story about a steak’s journey from a Nebraska ranch to a Berlin steakhouse table. I’ll share the award with co-author Christian Salewski who tracked a Volkswagen from the Wolfsburg factory to a New York dealership. The parallel articles were published with a very innovative layout in the August 2013 issue of Capital magazine. Here is a link to my English summary on this blog and one to the original steak article in German.

I moderated several panels on trade and wrote a series for The Globalist about what TTIP means for consumers, from car safety standards and data privacy to regulations for cheese and sunscreen. And I authored an academic paper for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation comparing the U.S. goals in free trade negotiations with Europe and Asia.

Radio and Television

Throughout the past year, I expanded the Flying Carpet Empire with training in new (to me) journalistic media. In June 2013, I took a weeklong documentary radio class at the Center for Documentary Studies in Durham, NC. My partner for the week, Natalie and I produced this feature about Zomppa, a local organization that teaches children about healthy food options.

In the fall I started working part-time at the Washington studio of German news TV channel N24.  From N24’s perch overlooking the White House, me and my Flying Hair provided live coverage about revelations that the NSA tapped German Chancellor Merkel’s cell phone. Off camera, I produced packages on topics ranging from cyber bullying in U.S. schools to an interview with a New York-based heir to a German art collector whose paintings were looted by the Nazis.

U.S. Politics

As usual, I followed political developments in Washington. Here is an article I wrote about the NSA scandal for Zeit Online and another one for Das Parlament. Please see my tag bar on the right side of this blog for a list of articles in these andn other publications.

For Capital, I wrote a longer piece about how business groups and moderate conservatives are trying to take back the Republican Party from the right-wing Tea Party fringe. The Republican Mainstreet Partnership posted an English translation of my piece.

Columnist for America Journal

As a fun new gig I now write a column for America Journal about Transatlantic observations in my every day life in Washington. So far I’ve written about opulent American weddings (as opposed to more modest German equivalents), about the global reach of the U.S. tax authority, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and about buying houses and moving in Germany vs. the U.S. For the latest issue, I also wrote an essay about American highways and byways.–a chance to get very nostalgic remembering my own road trips in the past six years.

Mother of a Transatlantic baby Last but not least – here is the main reason I’ve been neglecting the Flying Carpet Blog: