At RTL News it is not a cucumber but crash season: a new editorial system provides so much chaos that an ambulance has already been pulled out for unwell employees three times, Victor Vlam reports.
A nightmare upgrade at RTL News: the old editorial system Inews, which has been the backbone of the TV broadcast for years, is being replaced by Saga. Only: the brand new studio that has to run with Saga is not nearly ready. The result: editors make everything in Saga, but have to manually transfer everything to Inews one hour before the show.
Horrorstress
How do we know? By media aritor Victor Vlam. He denounces this in his podcast Victor explains TVbecause this system change would have extreme horror stress on the editorial floor. “The new studio will only be put into use next year. So everyone has to copy all things to a different system,” he says.
He continues: “That is of course something that takes a lot of time. Just to sketch a comparison: it is a bit like cooking a five -course dinner in kitchen A, but an hour before the guests arrive you have to move everything to kitchen B, where the pans are different, the stove works strangely and half of your things are lost.”
Big news
The government fell precisely during this process. “In fact, a lot of big news this summer and you have a situation where the workload was really extremely high. You could actually say: the entire organization runs on its toes. On all sides it squeaks and it squeaks and that also means that morality is really unprecedentedly low.”
The technical problems also reach the viewer if, for example, a broadcast cannot take place. “So I also spoke to people who say:” Yes, some people don’t even fascinate anymore whether a broadcast is going on or not. It is really something that is incredibly hard work and constantly the pressure is incredibly high. “
Ambulance
And that is still an understatement, according to Victor. “It has even risen so high that recently an ambulance has come three times because of people who became unwell from the towering workload. One of the people is the editor of half past seven. That is someone who has been working at RTL News for 18 years.”
He continues: “Yes, she too had a lot of trouble with the stress and the work pressure. After she was treated by the ambulance personnel, she stayed home for a week and a half to keep peace and now, two months later, she is fully back to work again. Yes, that indicates: that workload is high.”
Three times
Victor also spoke that ambulance personnel. “Ambulance personnel also notes that RTL News has to be pulled out very often, because three times in a relatively short time, that is really very often, and that was also confirmed by the staff.”
What does RTL say? “I have asked RTL to confirm this. They say it is a private issue and do not want to comment on that. But yes, I must honestly say it is not private. It is happening in the workplace and it is also because of the high work pressure, so it is anything but private. Anyway, they do not want to officially confirm that.”
“Anyway, several ambulance drives, that is something that has been confirmed by people at RTL News.”
What does RTL say?
The editor-in-chief of RTL Nieuws responds: “We have had months in which we have introduced many new systems. Tooling, technology and studios were in need of renewal. The entire RTL news editors have been trained in those systems in the past period, just like external staff.”
“In the meantime, we want to continue to inform our audience without prejudice about major news events at home and abroad that follow each other at a rapid pace. That requires a lot of all of us. We are happy with the commitment that the editors show every day. Together we have looked at what we do not do until the transformation has been completed.”
Half -year
No denial, but no confirmation. What do they say here? Victor: “So they say they are going to see how they can reduce the workload.”
“Again: they are still in these chaos for half a year, so let’s hope they find a good solution for that to bridge that time.”
Update 4.45 pm
RTL emphasizes that it did not put the problems at RTL News as ‘private issue’. The high workload is recognized, but for privacy reasons, the company does not want to confirm or deny that ambulances have been pulled out. “Because we always want to protect the privacy of our employees.”
If there are cases where the workload rises or has risen too high, RTL says he takes his duties as an employer very seriously and to take good care of the colleagues involved.