Not only Shownieuws, but also Parool journalist Roelf Jan Duin had known for years about the alleged domestic violence by Theo Maassen. “It was a journalistic dilemma for me.”
Theo Maassen has been on the magazine rack of all supermarkets in the country for five days now. ‘THEO MAASSEN: SHOCKING FILE. His wife: broken nose, his ex: head wound,’ it says large on the cover. “After this, who can ever laugh at him again?” And editor-in-chief Evert Santegoeds obviously means that as a rhetorical question…
Parool knew about it
As a private boss, Evert has dared to make the alleged domestic violence by Theo public, especially because he has an app conversation between his wife Joyce and mistress Angela. A piece of evidence consisting of no less than 125 thousand words. Sounds quite convincing, but it now appears that several media outlets did not dare to do it before…
Shownieuws appears to have known about the alleged violence for years, the VPRO already knew about it and now Parool journalist Roelf Jan Duin also admits that he had been aware of it for a long time. “The story also seemed very familiar to me. At the end of 2017, the MeToo storm had just started in full force, I was approached by a woman who wanted to share her story.”
Sad story
It turned out to be about Theo, Roelf Jan writes in his column Het Parool. “It was a sad, but also complicated story. The affair, which had taken place years earlier, had clearly damaged the woman, but her motives for going public remained somewhat unclear.”
She said she did not want to take revenge, but she did want Theo to stop harming people. Apparently there was little confidence in the police, where many of these types of cases fail. “She said she would stand up for his wife, whom he not only cheated on but also abused and who nevertheless stayed with him.”
Support certificate
According to this woman – probably mistress Angela, who is part of that 125,000-word app conversation – no report was filed with the police due to missing supporting evidence. Then you will get a lot further in the media; After all, you don’t need proof of support there to get someone punished…
It was a ‘journalistic dilemma’ for Roelf Jan, especially because of the ‘believe her’ movement, a call to take women who share stories of abuse more seriously. “But this story was clearly ‘unfit to print’. (…) Domestic violence is a serious allegation, but it also requires serious evidence, not a second or third-hand story.”
Two sources
Roelf Jan informed the woman that she would refrain from publication, but now the story about the humor hulk is still on the street. And rightly so, says media journalist Mark Koster. “It’s good that Roelf Jan Duin was careful, except that there is now also a first source, says Evert Santegoeds,” he writes. X.
Mark is referring to Joyce, Theo’s wife. According to Evert, she has stated that she has no objection to sharing the content of the app conversation. On one condition: that Privé would not quote from it, but paraphrase it. And this means Privé automatically has two sources, Mark emphasizes. “Then it will really be different.”