Jack van Gelder is lying when he says that he never knew anything about an unpleasant working atmosphere at Studio Sport, says media critic Victor Vlam. “He publicly humiliated Danielle Oerlemans.”
It has now been almost two months since the sports department of the NOS received very negative news. Matthijs van Nieuwkerk-like situations have also taken place there. “Yes, I was shocked, because I never, ever noticed anything,” responded Jack van Gelder, who worked for the broadcaster for years, in HLF8.
Ridiculous nitwit
Jack has not even heard stories about possible transgressive behavior or an unpleasant working climate, he said on that talk show. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. (…) I really never noticed anything. Of course there will undoubtedly have been work tension, but otherwise never.”
But what about the story in it Noordhollands Dagblad about the ‘female presenter in the late nineties’? “Several editors tell stories of how she was scolded after broadcasts. An almost mythical element of the story is that she would have pronounced FA Cup as VA cup. Ridiculous nitwit, that’s the tone.”
‘Is about Danielle’
Media critic Victor Vlam dived into this story, he says in the podcast The Communicados. “I was wondering who that female presenter of Studio Sport is and that is not very difficult to find out. (…) There just weren’t that many female presenters in the late 1990s. It is about Danielle Oerlemans.”
Jack appears to have spoken on the radio about the VA cup incident in 2017. The fragment has been taken offline, but there is still a short description on the Show news site: “Jack van Gelder lashes out at Danielle Oerlemans. He throws a number of painful blunders from her on the table from the time they still worked together for the NOS…”
Below: “Danielle let Shownieuws know when asked that she did indeed speak Dutch in the English FA Cup once.”
Butter on head
huh? But Jack told HLF8 that he never noticed anything of transgressive behavior? So he is a liar, Victor concludes. “When I heard this denial at the time, I already thought: well, that is a very hard denial. I also don’t find it terribly credible given the fact that those stories (…) have been circulating for a long time.”
“But if I weigh this up against the comments he made about Danielle Oerlemans on Radio 538, then I actually think to myself: I think this is a very bad comment, because then that is not right. If you now deny that anything is going on, then you have butter on your head. Jack van Gelder has butter on his head. It’s really absurd.”
Unpleasant working climate
Jack not only knew about an unpleasant working climate, he also contributed to it, says Victor. “I think that Jack van Gelder is also part of the unpleasant working climate. (…) This is really a way of interacting that I actually, to be honest, do not find normal.”
He resents how Jack “ridiculed” Danielle on national radio. “This clearly indicates that there is a problem. If you publicly ridicule a former colleague for making a blunder… That is simply not acceptable.”
Step further
Co-host Lars Duursma agrees with Victor. “Yes, because that makes it even worse for me. You can laugh at someone with colleagues and bully someone, that’s why you laugh and stuff, but this is actually one step further. This is public humiliation, willful public humiliation.”
He continues: “At 538 it will probably also have been discussed in an atmosphere of laughter. ‘Hahahahaha, VA Cup, hahahaha’. With the aim of possibly damaging someone even more after she has already left, knowing that this is also used internally at NOS to ridicule her.”
Jack denies
The denying Jack:
