Victoria Koblenko is back on the air: she was Renze Klamer’s ‘bar guest’ last night. But we don’t see her nearly as often lately. How did that happen? “Through Israel…”
There was a time after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine when Victoria Koblenko was pretty much a test figure. If it had been possible, she would have been with Jinek and Op1 at the same time. But where has she been lately? We see her stuck in the mud at Burning Man, raising the alarm about toxic receipts and giving questionable advice about sunscreen…
‘It is too much!’
Victoria is suddenly less popular as a talk show guest, although she was in ‘Renze’ again yesterday. “The expectation was of course that I would bring something from Moscow or Kiev, but that is not the case, because the suffering is greater,” she says. in the show. “We appear to have lived in the most conflict-ridden year since you existed.”
There are 183 regions in armed conflict, according to Victoria, but only two of them receive media attention. Host Renze Klamer: “At a certain point it is too much to follow and understand, because it is all super complicated.”
Where was Victoria?
And that, according to Victor Vlam, is exactly why we hardly ever see Victoria sitting at talk show tables anymore. According to the media critic, she is being hindered by Israel, which has invaded the Gaza Strip. “As a journalist, you benefit in a way from the fact that other people suffer,” he recently explained in the podcast The Communicados.
Now that the suffering in Ukraine is somewhat overshadowed by the news from Gaza, you notice that a number of broadcasters like Victoria are booked less by talk shows. “Some of them can effortlessly move on to this conflict in Israel, people like Mart de Kruijf for example. He is a military expert, former general in the army.”
‘Difficult for her’
Mart is someone who can interpret both wars, Victor explains. “But pure Ukraine interpreters are simply having tough times at the moment. Someone like Geert-Jan Hahn who regularly joined Jinek to explain that conflict, and also Victoria Koblenko who often joined to explain Ukraine.”
Victoria can therefore send fewer invoices, he concludes. “It is more difficult for those people to get into talk shows, because Ukraine and Israel are two international conflicts. For many talk shows they are communicating vessels. If you pay more attention to Israel, you will pay less attention to Ukraine.”