About six years ago, journalist and former professional cyclist Marijn de Vries from Sleen reported undesirable behavior by an employee of NOS Sport. Nothing was done with the report, she writes in her column for the NRC on Friday. She reported the same incident again a year ago, but nothing happened then either.
In the column, De Vries describes that during the Tour de France she was part of the NOS program De Avondetappe on location for three weeks. On a schedule, she drove a car every day with a colleague who used vulgar language. After a report to an editor-in-chief, she was allowed to ride in another car, but nothing else was done.
A year later she was allowed to join the program again, but there was “a strange atmosphere” in which it was said with a laugh that she “really don’t have to be afraid to get in the car with him, hahaha.” No one seemed to support her, she writes. “Imagine that you have to be the nice TV analyst in that atmosphere. With the dirty chatter opposite you at the table.” Another year later, De Vries is no longer welcome at De Avondetappe, but she is never given a good reason.
After the abuses at The Voice came to light last year, De Vries decided to go to NOS again with her story. Again she got zero on the request, she writes. “And imagine being offered a conversation with the same editor-in-chief you’ve spoken to before. He wants to tell you that you’re the one who remembers everything wrong. Of course you refuse that conversation.”
The column follows an inventory report in which the NOS announced yesterday that the broadcaster has received reports of bullying, (sexual) intimidation, discrimination, verbal aggression and integrity issues over a period of more than twenty years. The NOS has not mentioned any names of persons about whom complaints have been received.
Presenter Jack van Gelder told HLF8 on Thursday that two reports have been made about him.