Jeroen Pauw would really no longer be able to make the talk show in 2023 that he has made for years, says media journalist Kitty Herweijer. “There would be a hundred percent fuss about that now.”
Celebrities and politicians are appearing less and less often in talk shows, because nowadays your head is almost guaranteed to be on the chopping block when you sit down somewhere. A pity, says media journalist Kitty Herweijer of De Telegraaf. “People are just very afraid of saying the wrong thing,” she says in her podcast Unfiltered.
Scared BNs
Kitty notices that celebrities are becoming more and more reserved. “Yes, you notice in interviews – I have often interviewed big celebrities, or just TV people, of course – that there is a lot of reluctance to really say something. (…) You can also see it at Op1 and the journalists at the table, the presenters, for example, that there is real restraint.”
According to her, it makes everything very matte. “I also just read a lot of uninteresting interviews. And often indeed when people are sitting at the table, it is not interesting to listen to. (…) Programs themselves also put snippets online, so small fragments without context, which are then flickered on Twitter. And then there is a commotion.”
Can Peacock still do it?
According to Kitty, a talk show like that of Jeroen Pauw would hardly be possible in 2023. “If you look back at old episodes of Pauw… Something is really happening at the table. There’s a real atmosphere there. Pauw says pretty solid things. Sometimes he also says things that I think: there would be a hundred percent fuss about him asking such a question.”
Colleague Elif Isitman points to an interview that Jeroen once had with Marianne Zwagerman. He confronted her with old photos in which she looks less prosperous. “Your husband left at picture one?” he teased. Colleague Paul Witteman: “Do I hear a form of understanding in your voice here?” Jeroen: “You can understand it a bit, right?”
Sexist
Jeroen would have had a lot of trouble with that, says Elif. “There would be a fuss right now: ‘Sexist.’ An old photo of her was retrieved where she didn’t look very flattering. She said, “Oh yes, that was my Rita Verdonk phase,” and so on. But it’s just really funny.”
She continues: “When you see that, and I watch so much TV… You hardly ever see that anymore. The only place you see that, and in overdrive, is VI. Something has really been lost there.”
Library atmosphere
VI does indeed look away nicely, Kitty agrees. “So this is also the reason why people find it fascinating to watch VI. Because they don’t care about that. So they are not busy with Twitter. They are not concerned with what angry people say on Twitter.”
She continues: “The reason it doesn’t have a library atmosphere is because people just talk freely there. And that is refreshing. That’s just nice to watch. And that’s how TV used to be before social media. Before everyone could become a permanent part of that guillotine mentality.”
Fragment
You can see the above fragment from minute 03:00: