Stephan Klapproth: "I think I saved Swiss television a little bit on September 11, 2001."

For over 23 years, Stephan Klapproth appeared in Swiss living rooms every evening at 9:50 p.m., wearing a suit and tie. As the presenter of "10 vor 10," he read news and background information, interviewed experts, and spoke with correspondents around the world. In 2017, he left SRG, one of the best-known faces in Swiss television. Now, at 66, Klapproth would actually be retired.

Instead, on this May evening, Stephan Klapproth is sitting in a private library. No tie, no TV cameras, but a microphone and an electric piano. Klapproth, the newsman, is part of the small literary festival "Die Rahmenhandlung," which takes place regularly in Zurich and Bad Ragaz. There, to the melody of the old love and freedom song "Le temps des cerises," he will read and sing an essay intended to inspire courage in politically difficult times.

"I can already see the rotten plums, sour and gray, getting lost in the compost. And we say, when they complain that this isn't their place: We can also decorate the dung heap with you." At the end, the audience joins in with the chorus.

Mr. Klapproth, when did you become an artist?

When the request came, I said: What am I supposed to do there? I'm not a literary person. I'd even rather take a philosophy book with me on a beach vacation than anything fictional. But the organizer was on my back with the persistence of a good news journalist.

The result was an “Essai chantant,” which is what you called your performance.

The most beautiful lyrics don't get me moving as much as a good song, like a Bruce Springsteen one. And suddenly I had the thought: What if the truth could only be sung?

You've always been about the truth. You started working for Swiss radio and television in the 1980s, as a radio presenter for "Echo der Zeit." In 1993, you switched to "10 vor 10," which had been founded a few years earlier. Was that a risk?

Yes. I thought I was far too intellectual for television. But with radio, I had the Martina Hingis problem: She had already reached the peak of her career at 21. For me, it felt like that at 30 with "Echo der Zeit." The show had been my dream even as a boy, and I had achieved it. In 1989, for example, we walked through open history books with our tape recorders; we were in Romania when the dictatorship was overthrown, right among the soldiers and tanks.

Stepping in front of the television camera also brought you a certain level of fame in Switzerland. Was that what you had hoped for?

As a journalist, you want to be noticed, yes. After just my first week on "10 vor 10," two schoolgirls asked me for autographs. When I said yes, they rolled up their sleeves: I was supposed to sign my arm. I scribbled something illegible – writing verifiably on girls' arms seemed too risky to me. These days, people only want selfies. "For Grandma," the boys say. Or, if I'm lucky, "For Mommy."

Does it feel good to be recognized?

Yes, it does. And Switzerland is the ideal place to be a bit of a celebrity. You get an idea of ​​what it would be like to be Bob Dylan. But you still maintain your normal, real life. People are happy when they recognize you on the street, but they treat me with reserve and respect. I've heard completely different stories from German colleagues.

As a news presenter, you will soon have acquired a unique selling point.

The sayings? Pure coincidence! We had a report about the Swiss astronaut Claude Nicollier, who had to fix something on a satellite, but it went wrong: a cable snapped, and the multi-million-dollar satellite went off. At the end of the show, I spontaneously said: "One more word to our fellow citizen Claude Nicollier in space: You were bitterly criticized, but don't worry about it – I think it was a really clever experiment."

A spontaneous, cheeky comment in a serious show could have been met with criticism.

But the audience liked it. And I rubbed Horace in the faces of the occasional grumbler, who 2,500 years ago demanded that anyone addressing an audience must "prodesse et delectare," benefit and delight. Only when television switched completely to top-down management did some boss ban my sayings.

How does Swiss Radio and Television, where you started in the 1980s, differ from the SRG we know today?

For "Sternstunde Philosophie," I once had a conversation with the now-deceased anthropology professor and anarchist David Graeber. He had studied a global trend: everything is becoming increasingly centralized, monopolized, and standardized. One could say: A kind of Sovietization has unfortunately taken hold of all our Western institutions. I also observed this at the SRG (Swiss Broadcasting Corporation). But only towards the end. I truly had the privilege of experiencing the golden years at Swiss television.

What did those fat years look like?

In the 1990s, the rule was: As long as a show is doing well, its editors have free rein. Once, after the broadcast, we received a message via telex – that's how we received our information back then – that the Gaza-Jericho peace agreement would be signed the next day in the Middle East. Today we know: It didn't work out. But back then, we flew out that night without any expense claims or paperwork, and the next day, "10 vor 10" aired live from Jericho. This philosophy attracted daredevils who wanted to take risks. People who were remembered.

Does the SRF lack this courage today, and does it also lack the remarkable figures?

There are still some original minds at SRF. But I've always warned against centralization and the newsroom concept, which undermines the dynamics of a close-knit editorial team. Broadcasts these days are often just labels. The newsroom reminds me of a galley: everyone is interchangeably at the helm, and there's someone at the front who sets the pace and speed of attack. Neither the audience nor the journalists can truly identify with that.

"No Billag" and the halving initiative seem to support your theory. The SRG is losing support among the population.

I see it as a case of old SRG enemies at work, sensing an opportunity. The general public would regret halving television broadcasting if oligarch TV were to become the dominant journalistic power here as well. My former colleague Susanne Wille, as the SRG's top admiral, seems to me to be taking the exciting course of following the signal sent by SVP Media Minister Albert Rösti: "If you save 10 percent, I'm on your side" – that's an important message. That could save our democracy.

Will Swiss television save direct democracy?

For ten years, I taught a lecture on the structural transformation of the public sphere at the universities of Geneva and Neuchâtel. The central thesis: There can be no democracy without a shared platform for discourse! People can verbally lash out at each other there, but society must not be allowed to disintegrate into splinter groups.

When terrorists flew two planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Switzerland sat in front of the TV – and watched you as you hosted an entire, uncertain live broadcast.

. . . and spontaneously – for five hours straight. I think I saved Swiss television a little bit that day.

You have to do this.

When the first plane hit Tower 1, no one knew: Was this an accident? Was it terrorism? We had so many screens with news channels on them, and soon almost all of them were showing the same horrific images. Only on our SRF 1 was an animal documentary playing. Because I was the most experienced presenter in the station, I braced myself. I was convinced we would go live in the next few minutes. But that decision never came: coincidentally, none of the key decision-makers were available on that day. Swiss television was blocked.

The World Trade Center falls in New York, and they broadcast an animal film from Leutschenbach.

I was so angry. Then, by chance, I bumped into the TV director's personal advisor in the elevator. I said, "You have to go to the control room now and order the switchover to the news studio!" Then, in the middle of the afternoon, I sat down at the "10 vor 10" desk in the studio, and we went live on air.

What do you say to the audience when you don't know what's going on?

I just sat there and trusted myself to speak. Later, ETH professor Kurt Spillmann joined me in the studio. He was probably the first person in the German-speaking world to say that after these attacks, there was a great danger that the "clash of cultures" would now fully erupt.

In 2016, you hosted another historic event in the US: the election of Donald Trump. That was your last live broadcast. When it became clear that Trump would win, you became really angry.

Oh yes! The producer kept telling me during the show: "Take your foot off the gas!" But I didn't want to. Even back then, it was clear to me: This is no ordinary election, but something that experts call the paradox of tolerance: What should a democracy do when someone comes along who doesn't respect it? Extend the noble principles of tolerance to them and then let them exploit or even destroy it? Trump said back then: "I'll accept the election result if I win." You don't have to be particularly clever to rewrite that to: "I won't accept it if I lose." With such a player in the democratic game, the game is rigged from the start. As a democratic media outlet, I felt it was SRF's duty to say so.

But that's not what SRF wanted ?

The producer simply stuck to the traditional principle of balance. That's fundamentally correct. But in my opinion, different weapons are needed against those destroying democracy. After seven hours of broadcasting, the ombudsman had received seven complaints against me. One per hour. I'm still proud of that today.

What kind of complaints were they?

Imbalance, political stance, bias – things like that.

How do you see this today?

When someone in discussions I moderate today says, "Donald Trump is right in a way," I jump in and say: Trump is never right, because nothing this cynical nihilist does is based on socially justifiable values. His only value is personal profit, which is why his motive is always wrong.

Especially when it comes to so-called “woke issues,” you are not that far away from Trump.

With its identity-woke betrayal of universalism and "common sense," the left is becoming a stooge for right-wing populists. Critical Race Theory is a Leninist heresy. As long as the socially progressive forces don't clean up this mess, I also say to the left: Some of you are no longer even talking to anyone.

What is the advice of someone whose profession is speaking: How does a society stay in conversation?

To paraphrase Voltaire: "I hate what you say, but I'll give my life to have you say it." I dream of a society and a media where sparks fly with joy, and people part ways as adversaries rather than enemies. Because that's the only way humanism works: I want to be able to look you in the eye—because that's what makes us human.

Anyone who would like to hear Stephan Klapproth sing a duet with the Lucerne jazz singer Esther Bucher will have the next opportunity on September 13th at “Die Rahmenhandlung” in Bad Ragaz.