No ‘Best of 2000’ competition for Van Nieuwkerk after ‘Structural Behavior Across Borders’

Matthijs van Nieuwkerk helped in part because he was “extremely angry” The world goes on For a culture of fear that made many employees sick. to write De Volkskrant Saturday in a long reconstruction process for which the newspaper spoke to seventy former employees. More than fifty of these support the submitted conclusion of “Structural Transgressive Behavior”. As a result, many of them experienced fatigue, anxiety attacks, or other serious psychological complaints, which in some cases persisted.

Complaints of abuse were on the talk show, which was shown on television from 2005 to 2020, according to De Volkskrant Known for a long time to manage the broadcaster BNNVARA, but they did not get involved because the daily TV program was very successful. The “hard” editorial culture simply belonged to the high, according to Frans Klein, Director of Broadcasting at the time and now Director of Television for the entire public broadcaster. Most of the editors, who are formally the program’s executives, did not intervene either, or were themselves guilty of misconduct, like Dieuwke Wynia, as the reconstruction shows.

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Van Nieuwkerk did not want to cooperate with the article, but he stipulated with de Volkskrant that he could publish a reaction next to it by way of stabbing. In it he wrote: “I am very sorry that we were not able to give everyone a safe and pleasant feeling and even made colleagues sick.” But: “At the same time, this article is also a cruel caricature of fifteen years of DWDD. […] I am now comfortably folded back into an eternal tantrum. And I didn’t think that was me. He also sings the praises of his “daily program full of zest for life, optimism and imagination”.

Broadcaster BNNVARA, who produced DWDD, says in response that management has had discussions with former editors. A number of (former) colleagues indicate in no uncertain terms that their boundaries have been crossed. We were shocked by it and it is dear to us. BNNVARA acknowledges that pressure to perform was high within the program’s editorial board and that the response was not timely. The editors and the presenter should have been called to account for their behaviour. The fact that this did not happen at the time is distressing to the (former) colleagues who were affected by this.

Thomas Brunning, secretary of the Dutch Association of Journalists (NVJ), told news agency ANB that “temporary and inferior contracts for freelancers” were the basis for not daring to report the abuse. According to Bruning, the problems in DWDD are an example of the unsafe work culture that prevails in Hilversum.

Success

The success of DWDD made Van Nieuwkerk (Amsterdam, 1960) one of the most important television producers in Hilversum. Before coming to television, he was the editor-in-chief of an Amsterdam newspaper Parole. He is now making music programmes Chansons!And the Top 2000 in Go-Go The Saturday Night Show Mattis continues. In response to the news, broadcaster NTR decided to cancel Saturday night’s Top 2000 Quiz recordings.

He. She VolkskrantAn article about a culture of fear contradicts many of the praises that have appeared in the press about DWDD thus far. The show has given a lot of attention to culture and could give artists or TV makers an important boost. Then-TV critic for NRC Arjen Fortuin described DWDD: “One of the monuments of Dutch television history, and by far the most influential program of the 21st century.” According to him, the success lay largely with Van Nieuwkerk: “The program is inconceivable without his ambition to get the most out of every radio day, his journalistic instinct, ability to present at a killer pace, and his desire to impress.”

Misconduct and abuse of power, such as what happened in DWDD, is seen as newsworthy “transgression behavior,” and it’s fairly recent. Since the MeToo movement, sexual misconduct has become more exposed, and in its wake have other forms of misconduct in the workplace. Earlier, for example, the publisher Mai Spijkers was discredited because of this. Actress Maryam Hassouni recently published a revealing book on racism, sexism, and offensive behavior in the television and film industries.