According to René van der Gijp, Charles Groenhuijsen has overdone himself in his talk show Op1. He’s done with the presenter. “He has an intellectual disability.”
It is incomprehensible to René van der Gijp how Charles Groenhuijsen behaved on Wednesday evening in his talk show Op1 against two traumatized victims of the war in Ukraine. Not only did he confront them with serious images of war victims, but he also asked their opinion about it.
Strong criticism of Charles
René finds the talk show host emotionally handicapped. “Well, I’ll tell you… I got me yesterday… You know, sometimes I feel like editors are losing their sanity. Yesterday I was watching Op1 and there is Charles Groenhuijsen, who I already think has very poor empathy, “he begins.
He continues in De Oranjewinter: “So there are two people who have brought two Ukrainians into their home. I really thought that… That was a really sweet story. Those people don’t live big, those people eat in the evening and had it really well organized. That man also said: ‘We are really happy with it.’”
‘So painful’
Op1 had a rather abrasive different item in the same broadcast. “What are they also sitting at the table? A war photographer, a man who took the most horrible pictures in Ukraine. Dead people on the side of the road, a woman hanging over her dead husband. And I really saw those people look away, those people from Ukraine. So painful.”
Johan Derksen: “I saw it too, René, it was shameful.”
Mentally disabled
Rene agrees. “It was outrageous! But here it is: Charles Groenhuijsen was no longer able to get out of it, so what does he ask those people (turns to the audience, ed.): ‘What do you think of those photos?’”
The Ukrainian woman reacted very awkwardly to Charles’ question. She stammered that the pictures are terrible for her. René: “It was really… That you get that into your head as an editor and that you don’t intervene as Groenhuijsen… That is for me… Then, then, really… I hate to say it, but then you really have an intellectual disability .”
‘It really couldn’t’
Johan fully agrees with René’s argument. “I didn’t think it was possible either. They just hadn’t thought about that, but an editor knows what’s coming and if Groenhuijsen reads the script, he also knows what’s coming. Then you have to make that connection immediately, of course.”
Charles has not responded to René’s criticism via Twitter.
