The discourse about media is hardening, so NOS is looking for its audience

Family from France recently sent Tom Zeilemaker from Staphorst images of demonstrations against the French pension law. The Molotov cocktails rolled between the police officers, “that whole country is turned horribly, horribly upside down,” he says on Tuesday evening in a large hall of the Nieuwe Buitensocieteit opposite Zwolle train station. But at the NOS he saw “very little” of that.

NOS presenter Winfried Baijens, with a microphone on stage, gets that question more often via Twitter, he tells Zeilemaker. “Then I always refer to our website or our latest NOS broadcast – and then the French protests were almost always included. So that is sometimes strange.” NOS reporter Mattijs van de Wiel, also on stage, agrees. He himself traveled to France by train. “Stones to the ME, tear gas”, he spoke about it in his reports. “You felt that was too little?”

On Tuesday evening, NOS organized a public evening for interested viewers and listeners under the name ‘NOS bij jou’. NOS reporters such as Marleen de Rooy, Xander van der Wulp and Edwin van den Berg came to talk about their work, presenter Winfried Baijens moderated the evening. Already during the program, but also afterwards during a drink, there was room for questions. About 200 people attended the meeting. Loyal viewers sometimes disagreed with the choice of subject, and journalism students wanted to know all kinds of subject-related things. A teenager, who came with his father, had a TV program Inside today heard that NOS reporters from The Hague have an “arrogant attitude”. Did they understand that criticism? At tense moments it is sometimes a fight for a quote, Van der Wulp admitted, until the boy approves. “I was okay with it Inside today I agree, but I’m starting to like you more and more.”

Loud group

The evening, of which she hopes more will follow, is part of one of her spearheads for Giselle van Cann, who has been editor-in-chief at NOS News since September last year: more contact with the public. “We determine with the editors every day what we think is the most important news,” she says afterwards, “so I also think that we should show our face in society. Not to make people who disagree change their minds, nor as part of a public relations campaign. But so that our audience sees a person, instead of a logo and a gray building.”

The discourse about media – not just about the NOS – is hardening, she sees. Reporter Edwin van den Berg experiences this personally, he says on stage: “Are you spreading lies again, with your cunt?”, he recently heard. Sometimes people shout out his car’s license plate number.

According to to research of the Media Authority, the NOS has had the largest reach of all online news media with its website and app for years. But, says Van Cann, “that silent group of viewers and listeners also has opinions and questions.” Take the word ‘state broadcaster’, which she has been hearing more and more lately in conversations about the NOS. “That is not a normal word, we are not an extension of the government. But the more often a noisy group uses that term, the more such ideas trickle down to audiences that haven’t dropped out. It is precisely to those people that we want to show: look, this is the work we do. And if you have any questions, we’ll answer them.”

For Sheily Belhaj, editor-in-chief of NOS Stories, which focuses on teenagers, reaching out to the public has long been a working method of her editorial staff. NOS Stories editors regularly visit secondary schools, ask what is going on, what they think of the NOS news on TikTok and Instagram, and what news they may have missed. That is instructive, says Belhaj on stage. “That way we get a better picture of the questions that teenagers have, and sometimes also their anger.”

Little impression

Tom Zeilemaker from Staphorst appears to be adamant. He really did not see the images of the French protests that he received from his family in the NOS news. He and Mark Rood, next to him in the room, came to this evening because they were curious how NOS would respond to criticism. The two are familiar faces within the farmers’ protest movement. Rood as co-founder of action group Voll Gass, known for the home visit to minister Van der Wal. Zeilemaker regularly travels to The Hague for initiatives of the national action group BoerenNL.

“Could it perhaps be the case,” says Lucas Waagmeester, deputy editor-in-chief at NOS News, during the drink against Zeilemaker, “that you did not see those images of the French protests at the NOS, because they did not really come from these pension protests ?” During his work as a correspondent, he often experienced, explains Waagmeester, that images were distributed during conflicts, which later turned out not to be real. It makes little impression. Although Rood later appears to be impressed that he got to speak to Waagmeester. “He did listen.”