Pinar Atalay

Pinar Atalay
Pinar Atalay
	Atalay in 2018
Born	27 April 1978 (age 46); Lemgo, West Germany
Occupation(s)	Radio and television presenter

Pinar Atalay (born 27 April 1978) is a German radio and television presenter.

Life and career

Atalay was born to Turkish immigrants parents in Lemgo, West Germany. After high school she ran, for one year, a boutique in Lemgo.^[1] She then worked as an intern at Radio NRW [de] and Radio Lippe [de]. She later worked as a freelancer and trainee, and was, for a time, an early-morning presenter at the local radio station Antenne Münster [de].^[1]

On WDR Fernsehen, Atalay regularly hosted Cosmo TV. For ARD-aktuell, she hosted regular news and special programs, including for Das Erste. She also worked as a reporter and presenter for NDR Fernsehen, NDR Radio and Radio Bremen. From 2010 onwards, she presented programmes on Phoenix. In March 2014, Atalay became a presenter of the Tagesthemen evening news, succeeding Ingo Zamperoni.^[2] In a 2018 survey conducted by Forsa Institute, she was voted one of Germany's most trusted news presenters.^[3]

In addition to her role as presenter, Atalay wrote articles for the German business magazine Plusminus from 2014.^[4]

In June 2021, German private TV channel RTL announced that Atalay would be starting as news anchor in August 2021.^[5] Alongside Peter Kloeppel, she moderated one of three TV election debates between the three candidates to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel – Annalena Baerbock, Armin Laschet and Olaf Scholz – ahead of the 2021 elections, which was aired live on both RTL and n-tv during prime-time.^[6]