Director KRO-NCRV wants Ungehoord Nederland out of the order

Director Peter Kuipers of KRO-NCRV wants Ongehoord Nederland to be immediately removed from the broadcasting system. A spokesperson for KRO-NCRV confirms reporting from the NRC about this.

Kuipers says in an interview with the newspaper published on Thursday that the broadcaster makes “journalistic dredge”. The broadcaster makes the statement in response to the much-discussed racism item from last week’s broadcast of Ongehoord Nieuws. The item in question showed videos of black people attacking white people, without context or explanation.

“What is now needed is what was missing at the entrance of Ongehoord Nederland: administrative courage, at the ministry and the management of the public broadcaster,” Kuipers said in NRC. “We can wait until there is another report, demand apologies and rectifications or come with another sanction. But if we are honest, then we know enough.”

Record number of complaints

KRO-NCRV is the first broadcaster to make such a call. Together with other calls from the NPO, such as BNNVARA and AVROTROS, the KRO-NCRV previously expressed its disapproval of the item from Ongehoord Nederland. In a joint statement, they stated, among other things, that in the video at ON “a false, racist message is proclaimed through language and images that we collectively qualify as unjournalistic, unethical and contrary to the core values ​​of the NPO”.

The images were shown to show a “less exposed aspect of racism on social media”, Ongehoord Nieuws presenter Raisa Blommestijn explained. The broadcast was heavily criticized. The Ombudsman of the NPO said that a record number of almost 1700 complaints had been received. Complainants find the item, among other things, racist and discriminatory.

The board of Ongehoord Nederland said it did not want to offend anyone with the item. “We have nothing to do with racism, discrimination or incitement to violence and as a broadcaster we distance ourselves from this.”

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