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Jan Hofer on his last appearance as a "Tagesschau" spokesman: He took off his tie like a burden
Photo: - / dpa
In the end, it was a theatrical gesture, executed with elegant casualness, with which the longest-serving news anchor said goodbye after 35 years at the »Tagesschau«.
As he spoke, he took off his pink tie.
The »Tagesschau« has been on television for decades, which has been the ringing of church bells for centuries.
Caesura and threshold to the evening, when the day's work is done.
There are few institutions that are as little affected by the course of time as the show that reports on the course of time.
Its real element is constancy, just as Hofer embodied it.
In 1985 he came to the »Tagesschau« from Saarländischer Rundfunk, when he was 33 years old.
At first, Hofer was considered a "confirmand"
Werner Veigel had discovered him, in the circle of veterans Karl-Heinz Köpke, Dagmar Berghoff and Jo Brauner, whom he was only supposed to replace as chief spokesman in 2004, Hofer was considered a "confirmation person" at the time.
He reported on Boris Becker's victory at Wimbledon in 1985, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
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Last »Tagesschau« with Jan Hofer: Finally without a tie
Ideally, the news anchor gives the clear water of pure news.
No opinion - neither as a raised eyebrow nor as a clouding of the voice.
He is not allowed to comment.
Basically, it has to be a white sheet of paper that is labeled with what is happening for a quarter of an hour every evening from 8 p.m. - only to be blank and white the following day.
The institution stands or falls with its integrity and neutrality.
Anyone who wants to go higher or is looking for other commitments to the side is basically out of place.
Hofer made satire at an early age, commented on the Eurovision Song Contest and ran talk shows - the presidential aura of the "Tagesschau" spokesman was not affected.
Service provider, not a star
The secondary employment is an employee's additional income, nothing more.
The spokesman for the »Tagesschau« is a service provider, not a star.
There is no excitement.
And if so, they have to be laboriously manufactured.
Hofer once wore a light blue tie, the color of the South Americans, before a soccer match between Argentina and Germany.
Only in 2019 did the microphone accidentally stay on after a broadcast, so that one could overhear a conversation between Claus-Erich Boetzkes and Hofer.
After some joking about the colossal sums of money that news anchors earn, Hofer whispers that the day before yesterday he received a revaluation of his real estate from the bank.
They are now "worth three times as much," he whispers.
It sounds like a sketch.
Boetzkes: »And?
Why are you still working here, dude?
Why? 0171 Hofer: "I don't know either." - "Just because you're having fun!" - "Yes, there is something to it ..."
He started his last show ("Good evening, ladies and gentlemen") with a smile that was perhaps a little more intense than usual Vaccinations in the USA and Canada, CDU candidate freelance, Biden, Navalny, football and handball - he himself became the news for almost a minute before the weather.
Jens Riewa explained that »an era is coming to an end on German television today« and presented a humorous compilation of the past 35 years.
NDR director Joachim Knuth praised the departing as a "reliable companion".
Presumably he really was a classic, one of the last of his kind. No character, a reliably confusable everyone with the charm of an incorruptible clerk of the fourth estate.
He took off his tie like a burden.
He also seemed to have enjoyed that.
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