Catherine Keyl will turn 77 in exactly four months, but she is still a welcome guest in the media. Yet there is also criticism; some consider her an old troublemaker. “Unjustly!”
The columns that Catherine Keyl writes for De Telegraaf occasionally cause quite a stir. For example, she recently stepped into the breach for KLM and that earned her an invitation from Op1 on the same day, where she was allowed to join the president of the airline. There was a lot of criticism about that.
Catherine is legend
Catherine is portrayed by some as an old troublemaker, but media critic Victor Vlam thinks this is unjustified. “She really is a living legend as far as I’m concerned,” he says in the podcast The Communicados. “I think we don’t always honor our legends in the Netherlands enough.”
It would have been nice if the talk show Nadia had paid tribute to Catherine, he thinks. “Since that’s so obviously inspired by Catherine’s format. For example, Nadia could have said something at the end of the season about what Catherine has meant for women in journalism. That would have been nice.”
Brought down
No, Catherine is not honored. On the contrary, notes co-host Lars Duursma. “I really think Catherine Keyl has been trending on Twitter all week with people making fun of and putting her down.”
Victor: “Yes, her opinion about KLM was quite controversial. But I honestly think you can. It’s an opinion she keeps there, so that can be discussed. But the fact that someone who is almost 80 is still so prominent in the social debate, that really says something about her qualities.”
Don’t fall short
Ridiculing Catherine is therefore ridiculous, says Victor. “I think you really can’t go wrong with her. Again: in the Netherlands we honor our legends a little too little in that regard.”
And that Nadia has not done so, he thinks is a gross mistake. “The remarkable thing is that Irene van den Brekel is Nadia’s boss, but she was also Catherine’s boss when she had her talk show. She was the managing producer of that program. That’s why I would have found it even more logical. It had been in place.”
podcast
The podcast De Communicados: