It is a story of coincidences. Looking back on his journalism career Peter admits only coincidences brought him to where he is now. He started his career in radio journalism because he wanted to beat his classmate in the run for an internship. His career in print only started because other people thought he could write and he only got his scholarship of the journalism academy because a chief editor who he spoke to in need for a job pushed Peter to apply for it. And if Peter did not meet Australian professor Wendy Bacon in Hamburg, he would have most definitely not finished his studies in Sydney with an awarded TV documentary. What if…
Peter H. Jagla was born in 1984 in Kędzierzyn-Koźle, Poland, and migrated with his parents and brother to Gütersloh, Germany when he was four.
He grew up with his parents Dorothea and Heinrich, his three years younger brother Paul, and his grandmother Barbara. Peters youngest brother Thomas was born in 1994.
Peter’s life seemed to be connected to and with media from an early stage.
At the age of ten, Peter started to work in media. He delivered the print magazine Der Dom by the Archdiocese of Paderborn. He loved his job and enjoyed the interaction with the subscribers who paid the subscription at the door.
When Peter was 16, he took his next step, accidentally, as he likes to stress out: “We were talking about our internships in class which we had to do that year and our teacher asked us if we had any ideas. My class mate Tobias mentioned that he was thinking of doing it at Radio Gütersloh, the local radio station in town. And that is when the idea was planted in my head.
“Despite of encouraging Tobias to go for it my teacher must have said something like ‘Look, mate, there is so many people who want to work for them. You’d be one in a million.’
“Motivation enough for me to be the one in a million before the other ones have the idea. Straight after school I popped in at the Radio Gütersloh office where I was welcomed by a lovely red haired woman. Back than I could have only imagined who it was: Tanina Rottman, Radio Gütersloh’s anchor in their morning show.”
After introducing himself to the chief editor in charge, Peter got the devastating feedback: Radio Gütersloh does not take interns from schools anymore. This decision has just been made a couple of weeks before. Peter belonged to the wrong group of millions…
However, he must have made a good impression at Radio Gütersloh that day. One day later he got a call and a few months later he started his internship. That was in January 2000 and he was indeed one of the very last interns from a school and arguably the only one who got a small job offer straight after the internship.
At the same time Peter started to volunteer as photographer and journalist for Lauffeuer, the official magazine of the German Youth Fire Brigade, the body of the youth fire brigades in Germany.
“Again one of those random moments, really!” Peter remembers. “Back then I was in the youth fire brigade in Isselhorst, the suburb where we lived, and had already some small articles written about trips we made.
“My chief really liked the articles and suggested to call the Lauffeuer-Team. And I did.”
In the meantime Peter’s engagement with Radio Gütersloh got more serious and soon he had not enough time to deliver Der Dom anymore. An era came to an end after six years.
Before leaving Germany after finishing high school in 2004, Peter freelanced as reporter for Radio Gütersloh and traveled as photographer and journalist for Lauffeuer through the country, covering top stories for the nationwide magazine.
2004/2005 changed everything
In his gap year in Australia Peter did not work in journalism at all. Instead he picked tomatoes under the Australian sun, served Pizzas in Australia’s oldest suburb The Rocks and delivered excellent customer service as barista in one of the most exclusive Australian ski resorts, Falls creek. He came back home as a different person.
During his media- and cultural science studies in Düsseldorf Peter used to work on random occasions for Radio Gütersloh and started working as freelance reporter for Radio Bonn/Rhein-Sieg, yet another local radio station in the state of Northrhine-Westphalia, and center.tv, a local TV station in the same state. He stumbled upon the journalism academy by accident when he had an interview with a chief editor of another small local radio station. Unfortunately he did not get a new job that day, but a hint to apply for a scholarship which changed his life.
The scholarship is a trainee program for students who not necessarily study journalism but want to work as journalists in the future. Among their studies, servitors visit a wide range of journalistic workshops and classes to achieve an excellent cross media education. Peter was happy to get this “once in a lifetime opportunity” and hold the scholarship for over four years. With funds of the scholarship Peter was able to study parts of his masters degree in Sydney, Australia.
In the meantime Peter moved from Düsseldorf to Hamburg where he started his Master of Arts in Journalism Science at Hamburg University. He still worked for Lauffeuer and was head of PR and media for the German institut juleiqua.
One of those random things on these random days in Hamburg.
Peter’s professor invited the class to a guest lecture by Australian journalism professor Wendy Bacon. Peter missed half of the speech because he was involved in an investigative research back then and his mobile was ringing non stop that evening.
“I was angry because Wendy seemed so interesting. I missed the most important parts!
“But at the end of her speech I could introduce myself and Wendy and I stayed in touch until I arrived in Sydney in 2009.”
No doubt, Sydney is one of Peter’s favorite cities in the world. Not that he has seen many of them: “It is just a feeling. Sydney is my New York.” Right enough to not return to Germany and finish the Master of Arts in Sydney. With huge support from the University of Technologies Communications Faculty Peter gets his classes from Germany credited and finishes his Master of Arts with an award-winning TV documentary on homelessness.
Peter was not just ready to return to Germany with his degree in his pocket. Instead he moved to New Zealand: His dream: Becoming a Kiwi. – Well, not really. Peter wanted to work in media on the other side of the world.
Light at the end of the tunnel.
When Peter tried to sell a story on a big and tragic mining accident in the west of New Zealand’s South Island no company in Germany seemed to be interested. Peter was devasteated, could not understand how news like that would not affect Germans. He spoke to a close friend on Skype, a journalist in Germany, who suggested to contact the Deutsche Presseagentur, one of the worlds biggest news agenices.
“Yeah whatever, I said! As if they were interested in someone like me. I don’t have a name yet!”
Peter’s friend pushed him to call the person in charge in Berlin, Germany. A few hours later he was on air in radio stations throughout Germany and the German speaking world. For the next months he reported from New Zealand and Australia. His biggest fish probably was the devastating Christchurch earthquake in February 2011. He covered that story for several TV and radio stations.
Reporting on catastrophes sucks.
Things became strange on the other side of the world and Peter was not happy at all. Reporting on catastrophes – basically making money out of the bad stuff happening in the world – simply wasn’t satisfying enough. In April 2011 Peter desided to head back to Germany. Random? What if Peter didn’t come back in June 2011? What if he hadn’t spoken to one of his advisers after returning? Peter would not have known about the next challenging step of his life: He was about to become a television writer and online reporter for one of the biggest public broadcaster, the Norddeutscher Rundfunk…
