Matthijs van Nieuwkerk thinks that his former editors-in-chief Dieuwke Wynia and Cécile Koekkoek are very much cleaning up their own alley. And he gets acclaim. “Yeah, that’s weird.”
After a long period of silence, Matthijs van Nieuwkerk decided last Friday, a few hours before publication, to respond to the Volkskrant investigation into his misconduct. His initial reaction surprised the newspaper and his employer BNNVARA, after which he came up with a second statement five minutes later.
Dieuwke and Cecile
De Volkskrant has protected Matthijs from himself and has not printed that first statement. He expressed no regrets and he lashed out hard at two former colleagues, the newspaper revealed. At Today Inside, where Matthijs’ bosom friend Özcan Akyol was sitting at the table, it was soon revealed that it would concern two former editors-in-chief.
That turns out to be true, because De Telegraaf is now leaking the very first version van Matthijs’ statement and it indeed lashes out hard at Dieuwke Wynia and Cécile Koekkoek. Both ladies appear in the Volkskrant investigation: Dieuwke as an evil horror helper, Cécile as her successor who did stand up to Matthijs.
Clean up the street
Both Dieuwke and Cécile distance themselves from Matthijs’ behavior in de Volkskrant. What does he have to say about these ladies? “I hear a lot of brooms sweeping streets clean. For a bit for the record: After she left DWDD, Dieuwke Wynia asked me to make new programs together. And we did: we made Moby Dick.”
He continues: “And Cécile Koekkoek asked me if she could come along as editor-in-chief to my new Saturday program Matthijsgaat Door and texted me after the last DWDD broadcast: ‘It was a great adventure, thanks again for that!’”
Understandable
Show news expert Bart Ettekoven does indeed find this strange of Dieuwke and Cécile. “I understand very well that Matthijs says that, because we all heard that from Wynia, I think, that she said: ‘We are going to make great programs.’”
Colleague Manuel Venderbos: “In defense of those ladies: it can also be one and one. You can want to continue with someone and not like someone very much.”
Bart thinks otherwise. “Well, that’s kinda crazy, isn’t it? (…) Both of these ladies who are now quoted and who played an important role in that workplace have not yet responded.”
cry along
Media journalist Mark Koster is also critical of Dieuwke and Cécile. “Wynia and Koekkoek howled just a little loudly with the wolves. This reaction from Matthijs nuances the victim role of the ladies, especially Koekkoek’s thank you app has a high oops content. Why didn’t Volkskrant print it with comments?” he tweeted.
Ton F. van Dijk, former broadcaster boss of NPO 1, qualifies this: “That means nothing at all. It is precisely the power of some people that provokes this behavior (continue to please) from victims.”
One Benjamin then: “Stop it, I can imagine that with people who have a mortgage and low wages. Begging as editor-in-chief if you can come along to the next program while you feel humiliated or/and belittled, I don’t believe in that.”
“Do me a favor!”
Incidentally, Matthijs also denies two incidents of misconduct in his first statement: “What about the suggestion that I forced someone to their knees? And that I would have made Paris unsafe? Do me a favor.”
There are also apologies missing in the first part. He just says: “The fact that we apparently haven’t been able to give everyone a safe and reassured feeling has a lot to do with the sharp claws of the ambition to make the best TV in the country every day. Something I’ve been trying for fifteen years.”
Horsel*l
Matthijs has changed that to an ‘I’m sorry’ in the corrected statement. Bart: “Those are completely different words and they do shed a completely different light on the matter. As a result, you may also understand why BNNVARA really insisted that another statement had to be made.”
And Ronald Molendijk in HLF8: “De Volkskrant has protected him. They were apparently in shock, like: really? We already knew you were a horsel*l, but that you were such a big horsel*l was surprising even for the Volkskrant people.”
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The opinion of Rob Goossens:
