Sam Hagens acknowledges that over the months he has been somewhat overtaken by his female colleague Merel Ek. “I now also have to get her oat cappuccino from the newsroom.”
The two of them have created a furore in a short time by joining Today Inside as political reporters: the young talents Merel Ek and Sam Hagens. Although he has worked for SBS 6 longer than she has, Merel has now somewhat overshadowed him, according to media expert Victor Vlam. “It’s really intense for Sam, of course.”
Sam responds
Isn’t Sam a bit annoyed about it? “No no no. The nice thing is: I arranged for Merel to come and work for us. I was doing the corona press conferences at the time and she was coming in all the time and then I said to my boss: ‘Shouldn’t we ask Merel sometime?’” he says in the section. In The Walkways.
Host Wilfred Genee: “That’s how it works. At the time I introduced Hélène to John de Mol.”
Sam: “And now it’s overtaking you too! Hahaha.”
‘Women are more fun’
Shared sorrow is half sorrow. Wilfred: “Yes, he’s overtaking me too! In that respect we both did the same thing! Ultimately: women are also nicer, you have to be honest about that. Women are just nicer.”
Sam: “Sure. I completely agree with that too. I think Merel is also doing really well. Something has changed in our editorial office. The relations. It’s, ‘Sam, are you going to get me an oat cappuccino? And do a big one.’ And then it’s: ‘Yes, Mrs. Ek, I’m going to get oat cappuccino again now.’ That’s how it goes!”
Completely changed
Oh, Sam as Merel’s coffee courier… “Yes, no, it has really changed completely,” he admits.
Wilfred: “Are you going to work on your own style or do things differently? Or do you think: this is who I am, take it or leave it?”
Sam: “I’ve been doing this for three years now. I started at those press conferences during the time of corona and then it was just a matter of going straight ahead and I still like to interview as sharply as possible, but the longer you walk around, the better your network will become and the sooner you hear things.”
Pit bull
Wilfred does not think that Sam should become tamer. “But I think you are at your strongest, especially when you interview so sharply. You gotta keep doing that as much as possible, man. You have to become much more of a pit bull. You already are, but much more.”
From pit bull to coffee puppy? According to Sam, it also partly depends on his editor: “I also had a pit bull interview with Rutte, but the editors were not looking forward to it, because they were a bit tired of that Ernst Kuipers story.”