Luuk Ikink criticizes Noa Vahle, the daughter of Linda de Mol, who is now a reporter on her uncle John de Mol’s TV channel. “What she is doing is a form of activism.”
There has been a lot of fuss about wearing the innocent OneLove strap at the controversial World Cup in Qatar for weeks. The players on the field are forbidden to propagate ‘love for everyone’ and that is why all kinds of peripheral figures at the football tournament are now wearing them, such as ministers and reporters. And Noa Vahle also recently wore it on television.
A little crazy
Linda de Mol member Noa reports on the football tournament for SBS 6 and she also decided to put such a band on her arm last week. However, you may wonder whether journalists and reporters should adopt such an activist attitude, says Luuk Ikink, the presenter of RTL Boulevard. He’s pretty critical about it.
It is not really the role of journalists to do this, says Luuk The BLVD Podcast. “You know what I find strange about the whole phenomenon? That the football players and the KNVB have come up with something that will not happen because you can get a yellow card and that it will then be taken over by journalism. I find that a bit crazy.”
Activism
Why does Luke think that? “Because – although it is a good form of activism – it is still activism. You are trying to propagate something that is secretly not allowed, but you want to let it be known: that is how I feel about it and I am actually against how your values and norms are. But journalism should actually be more neutral about it.”
Luuk emphasizes that he stands behind the message of those OneLove tapes. “It is of course a very nice goal. But if you want to report in a very neutral and objective way, it might be quite strange if you suddenly take an activist position.”
Human rights
Co-presenter Rob Goossens disagrees. “I understand what you are saying, but this is about human rights. When it comes to the question of whether Qatar should invest 300 billion in sustainable energy or in a purchased World Cup, I also think that journalism should be neutral. But human rights are by definition something neutral.”
Luke doubts. “I see it more and more that journalism is actively getting involved in social discussions instead of just covering them.”
Wheelbarrow
What do the gentlemen actually think of Noa? She undeniably owes her lightning career at SBS 6 to her family, but at the same time she gets a lot of compliments. “She had a nice wheelbarrow, but she lives up to it,” says Luuk.
Rob agrees, but he does notice that Noa is still doing a bit of a trick on television. “She has had real training in how to adapt your diction to such a talk.”
