Wilfred Genee gets a good slap on the fingers from Trouw columnist Jurriën Hamer. According to him, 2023 was an unprecedented year for gossip and backbiting. “With VI as the epicenter!”
According to Trouw director Jurriën Hamer, the Dutch media landscape will have changed beyond recognition in the year 2023. Gossip and backbiting have never been so big, he writes. in the newspaper. It was once reserved for Privé and Story, but: “Now the gossip is everywhere, and the embarrassment and shame are nowhere to be seen.”
VI as epicenter
It is ‘no wonder’ that the Wilfred Genee show Today Inside is such a successful program, Jurriën continues. “Former table guests are praised or criticized in front of the viewer without batting an eyelid, something that would have been unthinkable in the chic talk shows of the past.”
Matthijs van Nieuwkerk would never have done something like that in De Wereld Draait Door, this gentleman says. “Today Inside is the epicenter of new style gossip.”
Everything on the man
Today Inside, he says, plays almost everything on the man. “But that’s part of gossip: it’s much better to get excited about people than about files. The Netherlands is following the English tabloids.”
As part of the backbiting ecosystem, VI polarizes democracy, according to Jurriën. “Gossip is gut ethics that reduces people to caricatures and has little patience for nuances.”
Bully
Gossip does not bring people closer together and Jurriën finds that undesirable. “In the gossip world, the bully flourishes, who waves away all criticism with a smile and sets his sights on the next victim with a sense of show.”
And VI? That’s the biggest bully of all, he suggests. “Don’t underestimate him.”