It was an interesting topic on paper. NRC revealed on Saturday that numerous journalists, especially those based as correspondents in the Middle East and other sensitive areas such as Russia and China, are frequently approached by Dutch secret services. Whether they want to share information is then the question, incidentally or on a more structural, paid basis. NRCjournalist Joep Dohmen knew of a list of eight journalists who may be sacrificing their independence to provide intelligence to the secret services.
As said: on paper, the newsprint, an interesting story, which was written in the studio of media storm quite deadly. Because: Dohmen couldn’t say anything about that list, because then he would reveal a state secret: punishable. So we had to wait for revelations from the second studio guest of Humans weekly media program, NOS reporter Sander van Hoorn. Once a Middle East correspondent, but, oh dear, never approached by AIVD or MIVD.
Former Egypt correspondent Rena Neat then? She told, from a distance on screen, as a novice curious reporter ‘around nine eleven‘ to have talked to intelligence agencies. Today, she writes “reports” for aid agencies, she said. She had recently heard about a Syrian IS fighter who has applied for asylum in the Netherlands. She didn’t have time to make a report about it, but she did have two minutes to text a warning to the Dutch consulate in Istanbul. Neatly, it sounds like journalism is way past, what its role in media storm slightly cloudy. Presenter Roos Abelman had little choice but to talk in general terms with her guests about the risks of espionage by journalists. Short summary: better not to.
media storm opened with a reconstruction by NRC-ombudsman Arjen Fortuin of the sick Twitter campaign of VVD MP (and national campaign manager) Thierry Aartsen. After it FD last week brought unsubstantiated news about ‘dozens of beneficiaries’ in Utrecht who had quit their jobs after they had been given a house, Aartsen smelled his chance: ‘It cannot be that beneficiaries then just sit on benefits.’ He could have known then that the municipality of Utrecht concluded after an investigation that it was not about tens, but about six, no, three status holders.
It is admirable how calm Fortuin remained in his analysis of the spawning of the popular soul by the VVD member. At the same time, the item illustrated the weakness of media storm. It doesn’t storm for a moment, it ripples through the week unfazed.
The only real swell on Saturday evening was shown in the news bulletins of NOS and RTL: young orca stranded near Cadzand. A rescuer estimated that the convulsing animal, rattling in the surf, had a 50 percent chance of survival, while any layman could see from the couch that it was a lost cause. so what?
Around midnight, the NOS brought the inevitable denouement. Dead, long before the suffering orca had won the hearts of the people.