Interview: Jean-Claude Galli and Peter Padrutt
As a “10 to 10” presenter, Stephan Klapproth (63) was one of the best-known TV faces in Switzerland for decades. Tomorrow we will see him once more on SRF 1. In the interview he calls for a clearer stance from news journalists on screen too.
Mr. Klapproth, you are currently on Lake Constance. You will watch the “Retro Quiz” show with you on Monday, right?
Stephan Klapproth: When I was moderating “10 vor 10”, family and friends wondered when I wasn’t on the station! Today it’s exclusive once more, so I’ll dock in Bottighofen at noon to inspect the recording at home in private.
War in Europe, drought in Europe, political crises in many countries. “Quiz today” took up such important topics. Isn’t there a need for a format like this right now?
Even then it was tricky to combine tragic topicality and the cheerful mood of an entertainment show. But we also had deep moments. My favorite show was a Christmas edition in which, alongside Pastor Sieber, a Hindu and a Jesuit played once morest each other and laughingly found out that there wasn’t that much of a difference between the monotheism of Christians and the belief in many gods in Asia.
The show was canceled at the time due to lack of interest. Would the quiz be more popular today because the world situation is different?
Objection, Your Honor! “Quiz today”, probably the most demanding question game in Europe, had an audience rating of 30 percent and more by the end. What the program did not survive was that the then new television director Ingrid Deltenre cut off old pigtails from her predecessor’s regiment like the girls in our Latin class cut off their hair forks when they were bored. “Quiz today” was replaced by a sponsored cooking show, which then spread more egg than headache in the country.
They belonged to those moderators like Ingo Zamperoni or Marietta Slomka who classified the world. Isn’t that done too little today when moderating news broadcasts?
TV bosses like Peter Schellenberg rely on succulents at the front. Subsequent TV managers tended to focus on ornamental plants. My last big news show was US election night when Donald Trump came to power. By 6 a.m. I had already filed seven lawsuits with the ombudsman for imbalances because I kept citing political scientists – Republican, by the way – who warned that Trump was bringing fascism to America. To this day, I think journalism shouldn’t react in a balanced manner to totalitarian attacks on democracy – but rather with clear words. Most people are cautious regarding that these days. But experts like my esteemed ex-colleague Florian Inhauser show that with the necessary wit you can signal attitude even in “Tagesschau” moderations without providing a knife-wielding SRF enemy with legal grease for the next lawsuit.
How can we imagine a normal day in your life?
On some Mondays I take the 6 a.m. train to Romandie, where I work for the Universities of Neuchâtel and Geneva as a lecturer in journalism and communication in public space. On Fridays and Saturdays I sometimes lead communication workshops at ETH Zurich. Passing knowledge on to future professional generations is wonderful. But the miracle drug adrenaline – my only drug use, but one that I enjoy – I would be missing if I mightn’t moderate many congresses without working in front of the camera, for which we also create entire narrative concepts with our “What’s Your Point?” GmbH.
If someone came up with the idea of inspiring you to make a comeback like the ZDF star Claus Kleber, how would you react?
It would make me tingle. But when I once asked Hans-Dietrich Genscher on stage whether he would still like to be foreign minister, he replied with the joke that Ötzi, the iceman, had accidentally been thawed in the South Tyrol Museum of Archeology, and the first thing he asked was: “Genscher is still there Foreign Minister?” Similarly, one should perhaps spare local revived mummies the question: “Is Klapproth still moderating ’10 to 10′?”
You are an ambitious recreational pilot and have had many adventures. Haven’t you ever feared for your life on your excursions?
For a report, I flew through Africa as a co-pilot in a six-seater plane. When one of two engines failed over a closed jungle in Central Africa, we thought we had filled up with dirty petrol and the second engine would also soon be silent. You feel like a hostage: You’re still alert, but you don’t know whether dinner is still an issue for you. I hated that feeling – because I’m very attached to dinner.
And what do you think of Alain Berset’s adventurous air journey? Firstly, from your perspective as an aviator “colleague”? Secondly, from that of a critical journalist?
In aviation, something like this happened quickly. From the point of view of communication following the incident, I see – attention, puns – there is still room for improvement.
Where is your next big trip above ground? And what professional goals do you have in mind for the next two or three years?
I’m currently doing my most intense journeys in my head. With more time than I did when I was in the news rush, I’m trying to analyze global developments in more depth. For a four-hour history lecture at the University of Zurich regarding the power of storytelling in history and today I researched for weeks. If it turns into a book in the next three years, my Gutenberg goal in life would finally have been achieved.
In a year you will receive the AHV for the first time. Does that scare you?
Not the bean. I consciously got off the TV long before the security guard showed up in the office on my 65th birthday and asked for the key to be handed over. As a freelancer, I can plan a “soft landing” as I please. And if I’m lucky, maybe float out almost endlessly into old age at ground level with a column or two or so.
There is almost nothing on Wikipedia regarding your private life, except that you got married in 2008. How may we imagine your partnership?
I am in tender firm hands, and with full consent!
You had to or were allowed to classify the world your whole life. What is going through your head in view of the current mainly negative headlines?
You have to fight for democracy. “There is no free lunch” is the core dogma of all economists: Nobody offers you a free lunch! We celebrated the party of the free society and at the same time popped the corks economically with autocrats like Putin. We’ll have to make a choice. And I hope that on this epoch’s threshold, even if things get tough, as democrats we will say, as Churchill once did: “We shall never surrender!”
Directly asked regarding Ukraine: conduct negotiations or deliver more weapons? Do you think there is a viable way out of this tragedy? Which?
Deliver weapons until the chief poker player in the Kremlin understands: They shall never surrender. Not that the risk of war or a crisis winter without gas wouldn’t frighten me, too. But those in power despise and roll over the cowards first. Or as in the line by Wolf Biermann: “If you don’t put yourself in danger, you’ll die in it.”
What does personal happiness mean to you?
At my desk with a view over Lake Zurich to the Glarner Alps, I am working on a text that is slowly taking shape and thinking: We will die and we are the lucky ones. That’s how the great evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins described the privilege of being born at all. Or as the great C major philosophers Anita Hegerland and Roy Black sang: “It’s nice to be in the world” – despite all the drama.
Personal: Stephan Klapproth
Born in Lucerne, Stephan Klapproth first studied political science, economics and contemporary history at the University of Geneva, and later law.
From 1983 to 1984 he was an editor at Radio Genève Information, from 1984 to 1986 at Schweizer Radio International in Bern. He then worked as a moderator and editor-in-chief of the radio show “Echo der Zeit”.
Since 1993 he has been a presenter on Swiss television. Until 2015 he presented the news program “10 vor 10” as well as the format “Reporter Spezial”. From 2002 to 2004 Klapproth was also moderator of “Quiz today”. Since he left in 2016, he has appeared on special programs and congresses, and he is also a journalism lecturer.
Born in Lucerne, Stephan Klapproth first studied political science, economics and contemporary history at the University of Geneva, and later law.
From 1983 to 1984 he was an editor at Radio Genève Information, from 1984 to 1986 at Schweizer Radio International in Bern. He then worked as a moderator and editor-in-chief of the radio show “Echo der Zeit”.
Since 1993 he has been a presenter on Swiss television. Until 2015 he presented the news program “10 vor 10” as well as the format “Reporter Spezial”. From 2002 to 2004 Klapproth was also moderator of “Quiz today”. Since he left in 2016, he has appeared on special programs and congresses, and he is also a journalism lecturer.
