She had to think about it for a while, says Hester van Santen, when editor-in-chief Patricia Veldhuis asked her last month whether she would like to become the new ombudsman of NRC wanted to be. “It is a position in the spotlight.”
The previous ombudsman, Herman Staal, resigned from his position in January, less than six months after he took office. After the fuss surrounding the NRC reporting on statements by former informant Hans Wijers, and his articles about it, Staal came to the conclusion that the role of ombudsman was difficult for him and did not suit him.
“That put a weight on the position,” says Van Santen (46), currently deputy chief of the domestic editorial team. “But the ombudsman is not only there for the most serious issues. This position concerns all aspects of our journalism: quality, integrity and transparency. It also concerns smaller issues, where we explain what NRC journalism is, how it develops, how we monitor journalistic quality and what considerations we make.
“Asking yourself ‘are we doing it right?’, and emphatically raising your hand if you think things could be done differently, I have always found that, even as deputy chief, to be one of the most valuable parts of the job.”
Van Santen has worked at NRC since 2005. She started as a science editor, after which she was successively part of the economics, culture and domestic editorial boards. In 2017 she was awarded the European Science Writer of the Year Award. She will take up her new position on June 1, and her first column will appear a month later. Editor-in-chief Veldhuis calls Van Santen “a sharp, autonomous journalist who has a good sense of what NRC journalism should be. She is not afraid to ask difficult questions, even when the pressure is high.”
What does an ombudsman do?
“You are a point of contact for the outside world. I want to be there for everything our readers want to know and ask, and ensure that they are heard. And not only readers, but also the people who follow our podcasts, our expressions on social media and our videos.”
You become an ombudsman, why not an ombudsman?
“It is a very old office, it dates from medieval Scandinavia. Back then they were all men, I think. But now sex or gender does not matter. I want to emphasize that by taking over that job title unchanged. I think that my predecessors as ombudsman at NRC did not intend to emphasize their maleness with that title.”
Has the newspaper dealt well with what has come to be called ‘the Wijers issue’?
“I don’t think I should pass judgment on this now. I have not done my own factual investigation into it. I think it has been resolved with the investigation into what went wrong internally and the letter to readers about it from Patricia Veldhuis.”
There are many self-appointed ombudsmen on social media. Are you on social media?
“I am not active there at all. My predecessors did have an account on Bluesky, as a kind of counter, but did not get involved in current discussions. I think I will continue in that line. The power of the office of ombudsman is that you do not respond immediately, you think about it for a while. I want to use social media to be accessible.”
As an editor, how did you read the ombudsman’s column?
“It was always the first thing I read in the Saturday newspaper, the very first! Because I find it extremely interesting how we think about journalism. When my predecessor resigned, I also thought: maybe I would like this when I grow up. I am a lover of the genre.”
Can the editor-in-chief interfere with what you write?
“The ombudsman operates independently, which is stated in our ombudsman statutes. The editor-in-chief is given prior access to the text of the section, but cannot change anything. Does that mean that the editor-in-chief is not allowed to interfere? You could say: that is not stated there. But I have full confidence that the editor-in-chief will give me all the room for an independent judgement.”
Is the ombudsman some kind of reviewer?
“Please don’t, I’ll have to start giving balls later. It’s really a different role. As an ombudsman you also have to think about how we can do things better. That is not the job of a reviewer.”