Worries, yes; We were worried. But worries are so general. Couldn’t we get those worries a bit more concrete? Did it have been without electricity through a cyber attack? Or outright ‘will they be at the door of the door? Or could we still leave it at ‘very annoying for the Eastern European neighbors’ worrying?
On TV, four talk shows are made at the same time attempts to get an answer to those questions. On Friday evening, for example, Sven Kockelmann felt an urgent need there, “at the end of a week where, if you didn’t keep an eye on the news, the world had been turned another quarter turn, until it was completely upside down” (two quarter strokes). The editors of Café Kockelmann (WNL) had found none other than Prime Minister Dick Schoof willing to adjust those worries. That resulted in a strange item in which Kockelmann already seemed to have prepared mentally to look for coverage under his table, while Schoof kept calling for ‘a little bit cool and collected to stay, to say it in English. “
It turns out to be quite difficult: make your citizens alert enough to purchase an emergency package, but they don’t make it so much fear that they are already downloading a Russian course on Duolingo as a precaution. In that light I have developed a new care in recent weeks. I am worried about worried talk show presenters who ask another expert every other day how much we have to worry about threats from outside, and then say things in the same broadcast such as: “Geert Wilders has become milder” (again a Kockelmann quote from last Friday).
Tijs van den Brink, who already has a permanently concerned expression on his face, also did his utmost to get a redeeming answer from his guests. So that different gradations of Ernst could be discussed were at This is Tijs (EO) Three guests invited who each estimates the Russian threat slightly differently: generals outside of service Mart de Kruif and Arie Vermeij and Eastern Europe specialist of the Clingendael Julia Soldatiuk Institute. They were asked questions such as: “Is Putin on the way to us?”, “How far does he want to go, do you think?” And “but should we be afraid of Putin?”
Slightly more optimistic
None of them soon saw that the Russian army would march through the Dutch streets. De Kruif first feared for the future of the Baltic States and Soldatiuk that Sabotage promotions and disinformation campaigns could also have a disruptive effect here. Vermeij was a bit more optimistic – when it arrived at Putin, then. According to him, we had to be afraid for Xi Jinping. Don’t say that, you thought as a viewer; Be careful with Tijs. That poor Van den Brink initially remained calm under this new reason for panic, but when Vermeij started about China for the third time, something seemed to be breaking with the presenter. “What do you mean,” he asked. And then, inevitably: “Are those out to occupy us?”
No, Vermeij did not mean that. But get our worried talk show hosts to the mind. I am increasingly looking for coverage for them. I prefer to do that in the clubhouse of Carrie on Friday (Max). That is about assistance dogs, carnival, cultural heritage – about everything mixed, but rarely about who will come and occupy the Netherlands. This Friday Erik van Muiswinkel brought an ode to the ferry at the Eem in the clubhouse and there were members visiting the Dutch Flipper Association, the largest Flipper Association in the world. According to them, playing one game was enough to be able to handle that world again. “After this broadcast I will full bowl,” said Carrie ten Napel. I’m not worried about her.