Sam Hagens is very ill at home with the corona virus and that is why he could not appear on the barstool of Today Inside yesterday. Colleague Mark Kampers is now sawing his chair legs…
Terrible news for Sam Hagens: the political reporter is very ill and is really completely off it for a while. That’s why he was put in last night Inside today replaced by Mark Kampers. Presenter Wilfred Genee: “Yesterday I announced Sam and then he already made a bit of a weak, sick, difficult impression. How is Sam now?”
Sam has corona
Not good, Mark replies. “Well, I was worried this morning. I had him on the phone and it didn’t sound good. Really sick. Yes, corona, yes.”
Johan Derksen points out that Sam went to Lowlands: “Yes, but he went to that crazy pop festival in the polder.”
Gentlemen’s love
For the men of VI it all took some getting used to with Mark, because he doesn’t talk that much and also has a different sexual preference. Özcan Akyol subtly pointed out to the viewer that he belongs to men’s love.
Does Mark mind? Wilfred apologizes in the column after the broadcast In The Hallways: “I got a little uncomfortable just before that commercial because I didn’t know if you wanted to tell me yourself or not. It was a crazy atmosphere and suddenly you were asked seriously. How did you experience that yourself?”
Mark: “Fine, yes.”
Wilfred: “Of course you had already come out yourself, so that was not the problem.”
Chair legs
Anyway, is that Mark just secretly sawing Sam’s chair legs or what about that? When Wilfred asks him who he thinks is better, Sam or Merel Ek, he replies: “I think I’m going for Merel. Then I go for Merel. She is quite a new face in The Hague and does provide innovation in The Hague, I think.”
Wilfred: “And a white man like Sam is more of the same, you mean?”
Mark thinks Merel has a fresher appearance than Sam. “If you see the NOS journalists walking around there who have been doing this for so long… Merel is refreshing and innovative. A biter. It cannot be fobbed off.”
‘You’re destroying him’
Wilfred thinks it’s a bit mean that Mark talks about Sam like that. “Love this. Then Sam is dead sick at home and you have the chance to take over from him and then you destroy him,” he says with a wink.
Anyway: Özcan actually likes Mark in Sam’s place. “It is really a phenomenon, I think. People usually change when they come on TV… We don’t, but neither does he. He’s always like that! Fine.”