Screenshot: RTL

Tanja de Jager was one of the most famous faces on RTL TV for 14 years: as a presenter, for presenting the weather forecast, as a TV chef in the „RTL kitchen“ and also for making commercials.

She now looks back critically on her time at RTL: In an interview with Magazine Delano in July 2021, Tanja de Jager said about RTL TV: „And then the government tells you this, and then this big company tells you that, they just send a journalist there, who then reproduces it word by word of what he heard at the press conference. That’s for me, not journalism, that’s a kind of marketing or publicity for the government or for Luxair or for whomever.“ Source: Delano

Journalism that simply reproduces what is presented to it is therefore nothing for Tanja de Jager. And yet this is exactly what the businesswoman is now aiming for when she relies on her old contacts to gain visibility. This is what happens, for example, in RTL’s „Journal“ on December 19, 2023. RTL skillfully sidesteps Tanja de Jager, who can get very upset about homeless people who would block her passage. RTL itself comments and puts pressure on the municipal officials: „Even for the city as a tourist destination, it would not be a bad idea if the Passage du palais gave a more friendly image.“

RTL of course does not mention in the report that the lady who tells of her suffering is a former colleague, it says: „Tanja de Jager is the manager of that bar“. What is also left unmentioned is that until recently Tanja de Jager also sat on the city council for the DP - so she herself was one of the municipal officials to whom the report is now addressed. She ultimately resigned in 2021, as RTL was the first to report, „RTL Information“. In order not to get lost in the hard life of a bar manager, a little visibility is just right even after the end of a political career. Tanja de Jager appears in „Face B“ and lights up RTL in „Menschen a Geschichten“ for a very personal insight. But even during her active time as a councillor, the „Gérante de Bar“ has come to present her brasserie on TV.

Screenshot: RTL

One may therefore wonder what Tanja de Jager considers journalism and the work of journalists. With the understanding of journalism of RTL, a private broadcaster that mainly consists of advertising and for which ethics does not just sound foreign, it seems that she can now re-acquaint herself as a manager.