During the first acquaintance with broadcaster Ongehoord Nederland, the radical right sounds through

The debut of the new public broadcaster Ongehoord Nederland (ON) is over. ON started today on NPO 1 with the current affairs program Unheard of News† The program contained everything that the broadcaster had envisioned when it was founded: critical of the ‘mainstream media’, the EU and the political elite who allegedly pushed all kinds of undemocratic corona measures down our throats. There were also casual references to dark conspiracies.

Since the then minister Arie Slob (Media) announced last July that ON deserved a place in the public system, the first broadcast has been eagerly and fearfully looked forward to. Where one saw ON as a provider of ‘alternative facts’ that do not reach the slavish ‘mainstream media’, others saw the broadcaster as a propagator of evil conspiracy theories. Two years ago, for example, a YouTube channel of ON: freely speaking about microchips that would be in corona vaccines.

Character of regular current affairs program, but not very diverse

It wasn’t made that bright in the first episode of Unheard of News† The program had the character of a regular current affairs program with a focus on recent political and social developments at home and abroad. The lead was in the hands of presenters Ahmed Aarad and Arlette Adriani. On either side of them sat FvD politician Pepijn van Houwelingen, ON founder and journalist Arnold Karskens and Raisa Blommestijna lawyer who is fighting against the corona measures.

There was not much diversity in opinion in the first broadcast of Unheard of News† On social media, the episode was described as an ‘FvD favorite pub’. The broadcaster, which says it is there for Dutch people who feel unheard and unseen, mainly consulted radical right-wing politicians for the first item – the tensions between Russia and Ukraine – in politics in The Hague.

Member of Parliament Wybren van Haga could, without a critical question, dismiss the possible sanctions against Russia as ‘extremely stupid’ and not in favor of ‘the Dutch business community’. FvD leader Thierry Baudet was allowed to say that he thinks Putin’s performance is ‘very good’.

In ‘s studio Unheard of News there was sympathy for Putin and very little for US President Joe Biden, who takes the lead in the opposition to Russia. Karskens spoke cryptically about “certain forces” that would control Biden.

The other focus of the episode was the disruptive protests in Canada against the vaccination requirement for truckers. Last week, a cause célèbre in the far-right world, the protests were dismantled by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with the help of an emergency law. Among others Van Houwelingen, Blommestijn and a journalist from the radical right-wing Canadian website Rebel News spoke to discuss the injustice of the measure. Van Houwelingen: ‘What Trudeau is doing is totalitarian. He acts like a tyrant.’

ON founder Arnold Karskens concluded the broadcast with a positive verdict. Unheard of News had succeeded in bringing ‘the other side of the news’, he said.

An earlier version of this article stated that Rebel News is an Australian website. This is not correct, it is a Canadian site. In addition, it was written about ‘one-man faction Wybren van Haga’, that is not correct, it concerns a three-man faction.