Niels van Baarlen, sidekick in the morning show of Radio 538, is severely reprimanded after his allegations against Alexander Klöpping. “So uninformed!”
Alexander Klöpping revealed a few weeks ago in the podcast De Communicado’s that he visited his troubled former DWDD host Matthijs van Nieuwkerk at home. “When I look at him, I see someone who really wants to learn. And I think that’s exactly what you should hope for from a man like that in a situation like that.”
Big PR plan?
According to 538 star sidekick Niels van Baarlen, Alexander is just secretly part of a major PR plan to hoist Matthijs back in the saddle: “I think they said: you are going to Boulevard (the statements Alexander made in the podcast were also broadcast, ed.) already throwing a ball. That’s how it works.”
He is firmly convinced: “It is a strategy to have Matthijs return. Of course that has to come from somewhere. We will soon get that with Tom Egbers. Of course it is said: ‘Hey, we’re going to massage it in. This is now news, because every fart makes the newspaper.’”
‘Really nonsense’
Victor Vlam, the presenter of the podcast in which Alexander made his statements, argues that this is nonsense. “Alexander didn’t know I was going to ask about this. We had discussed it in general terms, but I had not said that I was going to ask questions about Matthijs van Nieuwkerk, so in that sense he could not prepare for that,” he says in the podcast.
He continues: “It came up really casually in the conversation. And of course when it came up, I did ask about it, because yes: I immediately thought to myself: ooh, how interesting, you’ve visited. I thought he was a hermit and he didn’t see anyone anymore. But it really came up casually.”
Machiavellian
The claims of Niels are therefore not correct, according to Victor. “So that there is a strategy behind it, I was not able to discover that. At that moment I was like: I wish Alexander would say a lot more about it. I really tried everything to get more out of Alexander… But he didn’t say very exciting things about it.”
Co-host Lars Duursma: “What I find funny is that at 538 a whole kind of Machiavellian strategy was sought behind it. I notice that this is done very often. That some kind of strategy is being sought behind something, which in this case was actually mainly a coincidence. Of course I see that often.”
Uninformed
Such a 538 sidekick has heard the bell ring, but does not know where the clapper hangs, says Victor. “You often see that a lot just happens by chance and strategy is often sought, while it really was not there at all. So yes, I also thought it was funny to listen to that discussion on 538.”
He continues: “I also thought to myself: yes, this is so uninformed how people talk about it. That’s just mind-boggling honestly. It’s just real that you think: guys, you haven’t even listened to the conversation yourself, because otherwise you would have a slightly clearer, better opinion about it.
Fill time
Niels makes a long radio show every morning with colleagues Tim Klijn and Rick Romijn. “They also just have time to fill. That is also how it goes with such a morning program.”
“You have three or four hours every morning. So they just quickly read an article about it and have a peppered opinion about it and then another five minutes is filled.”