Sam Hagens criticizes Frits Wester to his face. He thinks that his senior colleague went too far in Renze Klamer’s talk show. “You went into it very firmly.”
Frits Wester completely lost his self-control at Renze Klamer’s talk show table last week when his fellow guest Marcel Levi made a somewhat derogatory comment about the chairman of the House of Representatives. In left-wing circles – Marcel is affiliated with PvdA – they are not very happy that that position has now gone to PVV’s Martin Bosma.
Frits angry about disdain
The way Frits attacked Marcel surprised many people and he has not apologized for it. In fact, he leaves it in the podcast Politics Today know that he still supports it.
The 61-year-old political reporter for RTL Nieuws says: “I think it’s a shame if people show disdain for politics. What happens is very important. No matter how you look at it, all the decisions that have a major impact on people’s lives are made here in the House of Representatives.”
Marcel as ‘the elite’
Frits points out that Marcel is part of the elite. “If opinion makers or people who consider themselves very important, what has been called ‘the elite’, also dismiss politics as: oh, the Speaker of the House of Representatives is not important. I’ve seen it in recent years when debates got out of hand, it’s damn important!”
He continues: “I thought that was a shame. You shouldn’t dismiss the whole process as: it’s not important. Certainly not if you wanted to become a minister yourself four years ago.”
Sam surprised
His younger colleague reporter Sam Hagens, known for Hart van Nederland and Today Inside, is a bit surprised about it. “I understand what you’re saying and I think it’s a valid point, but you went really hard on it.”
Perhaps Frits almost feels a bit personally attacked, says Sam. “I saw you and I immediately thought: isn’t that a bit of the disadvantage of walking around here for so long, that you sometimes get the feeling that you have to defend things a bit to the outside world?”
Forty years
Frits sees it differently. “I have indeed been walking around here for a long time, almost forty years, but I have also spent a lot of time outside this door. I do feel that I have to defend the institute, because if we overthrow the institute, there will be chaos and we will have nothing left.”
Sam: “Is it up to journalists to defend that as far as you are concerned? I don’t have that feeling very strongly.”
Frits: “Well, I do. I am not only a journalist, but also a citizen of this country. I also have children, a house and I also care about the climate, environment, war and peace.”