NOS Sport can make good use of its ‘human approach’

After more than eleven years at news site NU.nl, Gert-Jaap Hoekman (42) will be the new editor-in-chief of the NOS Sportredactie. A bold move, as he will be under a magnifying glass in this new role. The four-member editor-in-chief of NOS Sport resigned earlier this year after more than a hundred reports were received in an investigation into cross-border behavior in the workplace over the past twenty years.

At the School of Journalism in Utrecht, Hoekman’s big dream was to become a music journalist. After an internship at New Rev he joined the editors of the magazine in 2004, where he wrote about music, among other things. Some seven years later, he had worked his way up to the rank of editor-in-chief.

In a look back at his years at New Rev Hoekman tells about his biggest blunder. He was allowed to go to a performance in Paris in the tour bus of the Haarlem hip-hop group Relax. After an evening full of vodka and joints, he desperately needed to go to the bathroom the next morning. Too late he read on a note on the wall that people were only allowed to urinate in the toilet, because flushing was not possible. “In the end I had to scoop my own hope out of that toilet with two Albert Heijn bags.”

The young music journalist now seems to have made way for a solid and reliable editor-in-chief. In 2012 he first became deputy editor-in-chief at NU.nl; a little over a year later, he rose to editor-in-chief. At the news site, he attached great importance to accessibility for readers, he said at the start of his editorship in an interview with YouTube channel 7DTV. “We want the distance between the average visitor and the editor-in-chief to be less.”

Enthusiastic about new ideas

According to former colleague Colin van Hoek, who worked with him for ten years at NU.nl, he also found that approachability important when it came to colleagues. Hoekman was not in his own office at the editorial office. “Everyone could easily approach him, share things with him. Even if something went wrong.” According to director Gerard Timmer, NOS has found a successor in Hoekman who has a “human approach”.

The NOS Sports editors can make good use of that attitude. A frequently heard complaint about the atmosphere at NOS Sport under the former editor-in-chief Maarten Nooter was that the leadership showed little empathy. This was recently expressed by NOS Sport employee Joep Schreuder. In an interview with the AD he told about the lack of humanity, such as when he shot images of hooligan riots with his camera crew in a dangerous situation in Marseille and missed appreciation afterwards. “So that didn’t happen. Never.”

Hoekman himself seems to see his new job as a challenge. Van Hoek knows him as someone who is “always enthusiastic” about new ideas and opportunities. “He is someone who always wants to move forward.” Van Hoek therefore thinks it is “not surprising” that Hoekman wants something different after eleven years at NU.nl.

The fact that Hoekman is looking for this new challenge with a sports editor is not unexpected for Van Hoek. “Professionally speaking, he has a very broad interest, but sport is typically something that, as a fanatical cyclist and trainer of his child’s football team, suits him well personally.”

With the cooperation of Bart Hinke.