The first broadcast of aspiring broadcaster Ongehoord Nederland emerged from the first minute as a megaphone for maliciously absurd disinformation.
A special day, Tuesday 22-02-2022. It NOS News devoted a real item to the date that the zeros and twos form such a funny sequence. The 22nd was also worth remembering for another reason, not worthy of a news item: as the day that will go down in history when the Public Broadcasting Service turned on the poison tap. The first day that broadcaster Ongehoord Nederland (ON) attacked the journalistic code of the NPO that should guarantee accurate, careful, independent and impartial reporting.
The debut of resentful Netherlands saw the light around noon, in the incoherent talk show Unheard of News† From the first minute it turned out to be a megaphone for maliciously absurd disinformation: It was not Putin who was the aggressor in Eastern Ukraine, but NATO and the EU. The Russian annexation was nothing more than self-defense, argued ON founder and chest-thumping war reporter Arnold Karskens: US President Biden is the true hitman who is “driven by certain forces”.
Perhaps the channel coordinator, the quality guard of NPO1, is scratching his head at the duo Arlette Adriani and Ahmed Aarad that Unheard of News leads. Their lack of professional distance (Aarad referred to Forum figurehead Baudet amicably with ‘Thierry’) should, however, be his last concern. His first: lying and mood-making, powered by – never thought I’d say that again – our tax dollars. Thanks to male brother Arie Slob.
In the evening showed news hour what serious journalism can do. With a report by Eastern Europe reporter Michiel Driebergen, who recorded a street freshly destroyed by separatist attacks and a burning power plant near the Donbas front. He had to run for his life and ended his report in a bomb shelter. Gert-Jan Dennekamp, stationed in Kiev, testified to the growing concern there. ‘Children practice flights to the bomb shelter. The two of them walk side by side and have a sticker with their blood group on the back.’
RTL4s Jinek, compared to ON usually also an example of reliable information provision, the guest was Minister of Foreign Affairs Wopke Hoekstra, who spoke of the great unanimity among his Western counterparts about sanctions against Russia. Ukrainian-born actress Victoria Koblenko was also present, who, on the other hand, struggled to hide her palpable anger at the lack of Western decisiveness. She was surprised about KLM, which had suspended flights to Kiev due to rising tensions. Wrong early signal, Koblenko thought: if it became really dangerous, Ukraine would close its airspace itself. Forget how passenger flight MH17 ended in eastern Ukraine.
Arnold Karskens would destroy MH17 with a Russian Buk missile in the ONpanel as a form of self-defense, because, as he explained in the afternoon, “Russia is a superpower that needs a buffer.” He will probably explain this to his brand new colleagues from the Public Broadcasting at the first post-corona drink. Shouldn’t they be in the bomb shelter, of course.