Photo: Nifoto (CC BY-SA 4.0)

RTL no longer wanted to use the word “relationship drama” after it was analyzed by them as a trivialization of violence against women. It is already mid-January, the perfect time to throw good intentions out the window.

„Relationship drama in Germany: Man shoots cashier in supermarket and then himself“, was the title of an article yesterday on rtl.lu. The text consists of less than 10 lines of text, copied from an AFP report and decorated with a meaningless stock image . RTL is just trying to quickly grab a few clicks here, with a provocative title. The word „relationship drama“ functions here as a teaser and promises the public: drama.

Screenshot RTL

A „drama“. Really? That’s a very trivialized and romanticized word for a murder. A murder that has structural causes and is therefore now referred to as femicide. Words like „relationship drama“ and also „family drama“ were used more often by RTL in the past.

  • Woman was set on fire and died: „The authorities assume it was a relationship drama.“ (03.09.2016)
  • Relationship drama in Rëmeleng: Ex-girlfriend didn’t come in, shot herself in the chest, survived. (16.10.2019)
  • Sarcelles in France: Police officer shoots family members and then himself - „The police assume it’s a relationship drama“ (20.11.2017)

A few hours later, the title of the article on RTL.lu was changed. Of course, the change was made secretly and without any indication in the article. From „relationship drama“ it became „relationship act“. This term is hardly better, but it is the same one that AFP also used in its article.

These terms were actually no longer in use at RTL recently. „It is not a so-called ”family drama’ when a man kills a woman. […] It is about murder, about manslaughter. That should not be trivialized again“. This is a quote from RTL journalist Carine Lemmer in a commentary that aired on RTL Radio Luxembourg in June 2022 and published on rtl.lu. With this commentary from their in-house journalist, RTL made a tactically clever move. Instead of questioning themselves and their work up to that point, they elevated themselves above all reporting in the country and presented themselves as the pinnacle of media criticism.

It is fitting that at that moment Magali Paulus was also given carte blanche twice and allowed to write on RTL: „Here in Luxembourg we also need clearer figures regarding violence against women and girls, and a legal definition of the term feminicide. A feminicide is the murder of a woman because she is a woman. A murder and not a relationship drama“ and also „[…] that women still have to die brutally, and that they are talking about domestic violence and not feminicide.“

Yesterday’s article showed, however, that RTL neither has internal control mechanisms, nor has it trained its employees, and is still primarily interested in generating clicks with outrageous titles.