Peter Kloeppel

After graduating from high school in 1977, Kloeppel initially did military service. He then began studying agricultural sciences at the University of Göttingen, which he completed with a diploma in 1983. After completing his studies, Kloeppel turned to his real hobby, journalism: from 1983 to 1985 he completed training at the Henri Nannen Journalism School in Hamburg, which was accompanied by internships at several print media, but also at the private TV station RTL became. In 1985, Kloeppel was initially taken over by the private TV RTLplus, in whose Bonn studio he became studio manager in 1987. In 1990 Kloeppel went to New York to report from there as a USA correspondent for RTLplus. In this role, he first gained popularity among German television audiences in 1990/91 through his daily reporting on the Gulf War. At the beginning of 1992, Kloeppel was called back to Germany to take over as chief presenter of the main daily news program RTLaktuell. The following year, the presenter was also promoted to deputy head of the RTL news department. In 1993, Kloeppel married the American journalist Carol Sagissor, with whom he has a daughter. With Kloeppel's involvement, RTLaktuell tripled its viewership during the 1990s. In 2001, the program was considered one of the most popular German news formats, ranking second after the ZDF program "heute" and ahead of the ARD "Tagesschau". The presenter's extraordinary popularity was due primarily to his ability to convey credibility. The calm distance with which Kloeppel himself was able to report on tragic events also contributed to his reputation as a sign of pronounced professionalism. In addition to his work as a presenter at RTL, Kloeppel has also been teaching young journalists his skills as head of the Cologne "School for TV and Multimedia" since the beginning of 2001. In addition to the "Golden Lion" (1996) and the "Bavarian Television Prize" (1997), Kloeppel received the "Special Grimme Prize" in 2002 in recognition of his reporting on September 11, 2001. At the beginning of 2003, the presenter reported live from Baghdad for RTLaktuell in the run-up to the Iraq War. In June 2003, on the 50th anniversary of the uprising of June 17, 1953 in the GDR, Kloeppel presented a vivid RTL documentary on the history of the real socialist German state. In September 2003, Kloeppel was awarded the German Television Prize in the "Best Moderation Information" category. In November 2004, Kloeppelt was appointed RTL's new editor-in-chief. According to a representative survey of the German population, RTL anchorman Kloeppel took first place among the best German news presenters in autumn 2004.