Our man in Moscow : Thomas Roth

The WDR, among Germany's biggest 1st TV channel (ARD) contributors, has a reputation of sending qualified correspondents to Russia's capital. Germany's picture of Soviet and Russian politics and people has been shaped in the past by such icons of German journalism as Gerd Ruge and actually Thomas Roth.

(Expecting to hear from you soon from Russia with loving critique. Courtesy by WDR)

His first professional ARD encounter with Russia was probably in 1991, when he joined the journalist group in Moscow. With some pauses (95-98), he committed himself to Russia until the end of April 2002, when he changed back to Berlin to become the head of the ARD "Capital studio".
Being in Moscow, he managed to arrange a trip from Lawrentija (at the Bering Street) to Kaliningrad with his camera entourage to broadcast in a couple of live sessions a vivid picture of the country, again following in the footsteps of similar ventures of Ruge and Sager(ZDF). We have cherrished to recently read a book he published in 2002 about that trip and found that he balanced well between an objective eye for the people and sharp observations of big and small Russian politics and psyche.

Now the WDR decided to send back Roth to Moscow and at the same time make them their "chief reporter" (whatever that means). He is also rumoured to move to New York in 2009, again for the ARD.
The work of ARD correspondents in Moscow is not without risk, as show the recent troubles and hits that Stephan Stuchlik (himself an ARD correspondent) was welcomed with when reporting about a demonstration (probably anti-Putin) in Moscow. There is a hell of a lot of work to be done for Thomas Roth in Russia. Dawaij dawarisch, pischite!!