‘Television cannot do without a newspaper, the newspaper can do without TV’

Buitenhof or On 1†

†On 1, because that’s what I present now, every Monday. I do that with great pleasure, but I will stop in the summer. I don’t know yet what I’m going to do. I just keep working for NRCwill focus again on reporting and investigative journalism, and definitely want to write another book in the future.

‘The main reason I stop at On 1 is the fairly strict format: every day we discuss three or four topics and I don’t always have much influence on that. But the program stands. 850,000 people watch it every day.

‘When I think of broadcasts that I enjoyed the most, they often had something different: in On 1At the height of the corona crisis, we had a full broadcast with nurses and doctors in the UMC Utrecht. And in an episode of Buitenhof I spoke for half an hour with Stephan Vanfleteren, a photographer I admired, based on his work.

‘The nice thing about Buitenhof, What I presented in 2018 and 2019 was that the conversations were longer. I switched to On 1 because I could learn a lot there: the frequency was higher – once a week instead of once every three weeks – and it’s a duo presentation, first with Sophie Hilbrand, now with Nadia Moussaid.

‘And despite what some people say, we have On 1 made good, substantive broadcasts about the pandemic and the war.

“But the February 21st was a nightmare. Suzanne Schulting and eight other Olympic medalists were to visit us, because of other obligations we already recorded that in the afternoon. It seemed to be a low news day, but after those recordings the world looked very different: Putin was going to speak about an invasion of Ukraine.

‘Nadia and I said in the broadcast that the ceremony had been recorded earlier in the day, but by then the damage had already been done: while a war had been announced, it seemed as if we were sitting there with a hopping orchestra. We couldn’t cut that part out anymore, otherwise we wouldn’t have had a full broadcast.’

Television or newspaper?

‘I’m a newspaper man after all. A newspaper is my base, the cork. There is comparatively so much knowledge there. I dare to say that television cannot do without the newspapers for a week, but the newspaper can do without the television for a while.

‘I find such an atmosphere in a newspaper office, with people calling who are disappointed or excited because they have made a wonderful report, that daily dynamic – that is the right word – is incredibly inspiring. Television is a wonderful medium, but not the ultimate for me.

‘I started working there because I wanted to learn something new. Paul Witteman then took the time to teach me the TV laws. For example, I spoke too fast. He also taught me how important an image is: if you constantly ask critical questions, the sympathy shifts from the viewer to the interviewee.”

To or not to a demonstration against Putin?

‘I tend to go to something like this, also because I think it is important for my children from an educational point of view. At the same time, I think that as a journalist I should be cautious. Because if I attend a demonstration against Putin or a climate march and later interview someone who comments on this, the person may think that he is not sitting at the table with a journalist, but an activist. So I don’t.

‘In this course you have to report and not take too much of a position, I think. All those journalists who continuously give their opinion about everything… that Wopke Hoekstra messes up with such a sanction coordinator, write critically about it, but don’t spend the whole day on Twitter sneering, as is happening now. Are you a journalist or not?’

Saasveld or Amsterdam?

‘Amsterdam. I grew up in Saasveld, a hamlet surrounded by only meadows. When I cycle through it now, I see all the natural beauty of Twente, but at the time I wanted to play football with friends and they all lived six kilometers away. Or I wanted curbs, but we didn’t have a curb. We only had sheep, but what can you do with a sheep?

‘My father was a veterinarian. He had a practice at home where people came with a parakeet. When he went to treat horses or cows, I was sometimes allowed to come along.

‘My mother is culturally interested and once took our family to Carré. I remember seeing its red letters reflected in the Amstel. That evening, Herman van Veen played, made a deep impression.

‘After secondary school, I was 18, I did a kind of entrance test at the drama school in Arnhem. In the absurdist drama section, I first had to imitate a stiletto heel. But I had no idea. Well, have an apple then, they said. I still had no idea.

‘In the end I went to study in Amsterdam. I immediately thought the city was fantastic: the pubs, Carré, Ajax, the Kleine Komedie.

‘I wasn’t much of a reader at that time. That changed when my youngest sister gave me the book ebony gave, from the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński. I read it in one sitting, cover to cover, and was mesmerized. They were travel stories from Africa and he described them in such beautiful scenes, as if you were there yourself. Because of that book – unfortunately it turned out later that Kapuściński had a very thick thumb – I wanted to become a journalist.’

The Parool or NRC†

‘During my student days I called The Parool asking if I could write pieces for it. That was allowed: the newspaper did not always have someone to write an article about the performances in their Parooltheater. It took me hours to write 150 words.

‘Bee The Parool I developed my love for urban journalism. There is a story on every street corner: whether it concerns the high percentage of Ghanaian children who are overweight, the mess at Ajax or the stalled renovation of the Stedelijk Museum.

‘But I choose NRC. The editorial is a great environment. Menno Tamminga, an economics editor, recently retired. He once gave me a fantastic book that I didn’t even know existed. Jesus, I thought afterwards, how nice and inspiring it is that this is the result of a chance encounter.

‘Colleague Hans Steketee taught me to write so much better. I like to make bigger stories and often start with a scene that draws you into the story. He taught me to zoom out in the third or fifth paragraph – I now call it the Hans Steketee paragraph – and describe what the piece is about. Otherwise the reader will think after a thousand words: what are we actually going to do?’

Louis van Gaal or Huub van der Lubbe?

‘I can’t choose between these. I wanted to write a book about Van Gaal (The hand of Van Gaal2018, red.) because I wanted to know how he finished third at the 2014 World Cup with a mediocre team plus Arjen Robben. About Van der Lubbe (behind the dike2021, red.) because there had to be one comprehensive book about that insanely successful band.

‘What Van Gaal has to an extreme extent – ​​and I’ve never seen that in anyone before – is that he really does everything he can to succeed. Everything has to be perfect, down to the smallest details: if he asks someone in Zeist to draw the lines, you know one thing for sure: they are plumb.

‘Huub is an incredibly smart, well-read, amiable cabaret artist. You really wish everyone such a father, such a son, such a neighbor. If the word fine-grained applies to someone, then to Huub.’

Paradise or De Balie?

‘That’s a difficult one. But I was afraid you were going to ask Sophie or Nadia.’

Sophie or Nadia?

‘I am lucky enough to be able to work with two professionals. Sophie and I have the early days of On 1 done together, when it was still uncertain whether the program would work at all. And we also became friends. That’s why I choose her.

‘Sophie is exactly the same on TV as she is in real life: a nice and funny woman. She is guided by her intuition, by a spontaneous thought, that is her great strength. With her I was the one who had to guard the red thread. Nadia is more structured than Sophie. I have more of a free role with her.’