In her time as a presenter of Op1 Talitha Muusse had a bloody good time with colleagues about the way the corona news was treated. “They wrote ‘killer virus’ in blood red letters!”
Talitha Muusse presented Op1 for a few months at the beginning of last year and she has not stopped talking about it for a year. This time she criticized the way the corona news was treated in the talk show. According to her, the policy of Op1 was to continue to feed people’s corona fear, she says in the talk show shiners†
‘Why Ab again?’
According to Talitha, it is unjournalism how Op1 has dealt with the corona news. “Like: people are just afraid of corona, so we just have to keep feeding them in it. Then everything you want to get out of such a conversation just disappears at the table. The guests you want to introduce will all disappear.”
Op1 is purely about the viewing figures, she says. “Why are we inviting Ab Osterhaus again for the thousandth time? (…) People have become so addicted to that negative, fearful news that it is simply rewarded. They see the ratings and they see that it will continue to score if you keep delivering it.”
Blood red letters
The pinnacle for Talitha was when Op1 started covering the discovery of a new variant. “Of course you have those screens in the back of the studio, that is a kind of wallpaper of what is behind us when we present. They had then agreed to put ‘killer virus’ in the background in those bloodshot red letters.”
Ridiculous, she thinks. “I said, ‘I’m being attacked here all the time for objectivity and neutrality and you want to put killer virus on the back of the screen, but based on what? Based on what death rate is that?’ That’s how it is with emotion. Just in red bloodshot letters ‘killer virus’. That is what the team, the Op1 editorial team, comes up with.”
killer virus
Talitha refused to present with ‘killer virus’ in the background. “I thought that was so bizarre and so fueled the sentiment. I really don’t sit in front of a screen with killer virus. I can’t justify that to myself and I don’t see how you can justify that substantively. So we spent hours on that.”
In the end, Talitha was punished. “A week later I was summoned to the KRO-NCRV headquarters for obstructing the journalistic process at the editorial office and everyone at Op1 had complained about me that I had stopped the journalistic process for hours because I refused to presenting that ‘killer virus’.”
podcast
You can listen to the podcast with Talitha below:
