After spending over a year in New York, Nilas Johnsen (48) and Ingeborg Huse Amundsen (35) have gained solid experience covering American news up close. The shift from small, peaceful Oslo to the hectic, bustling life of New York City has been intense.
“But we love it here! Americans are just as welcoming as their reputation suggests, and the USA is an incredibly exciting place to live and work,” says Johnsen.
For Ludvig (5) and Alfred (3), the couple’s two young sons, the transition has been more challenging than the parents might have anticipated.
“But they’ve made lots of friends and have really become New York kids now. Moving abroad with children is also great for the parents: Almost all the friends we’ve made here are through the kids,”Amundsen adds.
And how much do the kids understand what mom and dad do for work?
“Ludvig understands quite a bit. He was really into Trump and Biden for a while, and he knows who Kamala is. He has a rough idea of what journalists do.”
Little brother Alfred, naturally, understands less.
“He doesn’t like it when we go on ‘work trips,’ but he knows we’re ‘telling stories about the USA.’ But as it stands now, we don’t have any budding journalists in the making: Neither of them want to follow in our footsteps – they want to be a firefighter and a police officer, like many other kids their age.”
A system that works
Being married and sharing a demanding job that involves a lot of travel and time away from the children would likely be a challenge for many. But the couple has found a system that works, and they are very grateful to VG for facilitating such a lifestyle.
“We work really well together, support each other, and are each other’s best colleagues. It’s been like this for a long time, as we also shared the job in Turkey and worked closely together at VG, where we also fell in love,” says Johnsen.
They admit, however, that balancing work and family life can be challenging, especially when one of them has to stay in New York to take care of the two energetic boys alone. Usually, one of them works for two weeks straight while the other stays home with the kids, before they switch. According to Johnsen, the one at home is good at disconnecting from work, although some of their free time is still spent planning future work trips.
Reflecting on their year as correspondents in New York, they highlight many memorable moments, but the work on stories about migrants to the USA has made the strongest impact on both of them.
“We’ve worked together here in New York and separately, with Nilas traveling to Mexico, Texas, and Arizona, and I was recently in the jungle between Colombia and Panama. Additionally, covering stories about the opioid epidemic, gun violence, and the fight for abortion rights has left a strong impression”, says Amundsen.
Dramatic, ugly and a close race
Now, the final stretch of the American presidential campaign is approaching.
“It’s going to be dramatic, ugly, and a close race”, says Johnsen.
This summer, while on vacation in Norway, they were given a brutal reminder of how quickly things can turn extremely dramatic when Donald Trump was nearly assassinated during a rally in Pennsylvania.
“It was absolutely awful and extremely difficult to follow this from Norway and not to take part in the coverage. At the same time, we were on vacation with two small children, and we couldn’t just have one of us go back. Fortunately, VG is a large and capable team, so others stepped in and did an incredible job”, says Amundsen.
Nilas Johnsen misses his colleagues and casual chats in the VG newsroom in Oslo, but he enjoys the freedom to manage his workday and, alongside his wife Ingeborg, has “the world’s best colleague” in photographer Thomas Nilsson.
Since returning to New York in early August, they have both noticed a shifting mood among Americans, especially among Democrats.
“Those are the people we meet the most here in New York, and there’s a completely different sense of optimism and joy now. We haven’t covered a Trump rally yet, but we’re curious to see what the mood is like among them. Is the division deepening? Hard to say,” says Johnsen.
As for their plans for the coming weeks and months, Amundsen says the most important task will be to highlight the dividing lines, told through the voters they meet by getting out in the field.
“We also try to contribute to analytical pieces, but our advantage is that we’re here, so we’ll attend many campaign events and meet many voters. All other reports we produce will also be linked to key campaign issues like abortion, immigration, the economy, and gun violence,” she says.
The correspondents are also keen on giving VG’s readers, listeners, and viewers an accurate and balanced picture of the reality in the USA, as they navigate an American news landscape filled with conspiracy theories and fake news.
“It’s not too difficult to filter out what’s fake – that’s mainly a challenge for the news desk in Oslo. We go out and report the stories ourselves, and we have a 100 percent authenticity guarantee: We only report what we see and hear ourselves. Sure, both the candidates and the voters will say things that are false or colored by their opinions, but that doesn’t mean it’s fake. If the people we interview come up with pure conspiracy theories, we have to counter it with critical questions, while also showing how divided perceptions of reality are here,” says Johnsen.
What’s the dream story related to the presidential election? Will we ever read ‘says Donald Trump to VG’ or ‘says Kamala Harris to VG’?
“Some of the ideas we have can’t be revealed, of course. But getting a comment from one of the candidates, or someone very close to them, is naturally a dream story. Unfortunately, it’s highly unlikely that VG will get an interview with one of the candidates, as the chances are incredibly slim, and they almost never give interviews. But if we’re extremely lucky, we might shout out a question and get an answer. It’s all about positioning yourself to have the opportunity. Ingeborg has already managed to ask a question to Donald Trump Jr. and take a selfie with him – that was a big scoop”.
Ingeborg and Donald Trump jr.
When the campaign enters its final week before election day on 5 November, Amundsen’s mother will come over to take care of the grandchildren, so that both Amundsen and Johnsen can fully focus on delivering the final reports for VG.
“My mom was booked in as soon as we got the job as correspondents because naturally, we’ll both be working at the same time. But there’s a good chance that we’ll both have to work a lot in the weeks following the election as well – we expect conflict and chaos and don’t know if we can book Christmas vacation in Norway”, says Amundsen.
Do you dare to predict the outcome after the Americans have gone to the polls?
“No,” they both reply, almost in unison.
