For more than 42 years, Martine Tanghe was a journalist and news anchor at the VRT. She started her career in public broadcasting when she was barely 23, after studying Germanic philology at KU Leuven. She was also the regular face of the election programs on the public broadcaster.
For years, Tanghe also read the Groot Dictee der Nederlandse Taal, the spelling competition between Flanders and the Netherlands. Throughout her career she was an example and an ambassador of beautiful and clear Dutch. Last Thursday, July 20, she received the prestigious decoration of Commander in the Order of the Crown for this merit.
Tanghe retired in November 2020, in full corona period. Her last words as news anchor then: “I will miss you. Keep it safe, hang in there, it will all work out.”
After her career she remained active, including as jury chairman for the new Flemish prize for children’s and youth literature and as a theater maker. She was also a figurehead of Kom op tegen Kanker.
Martine has already fought cancer in the past. At the end of 2011 it became known that she had breast cancer. Then she disappeared from the screen for several months. But the cancer she contracted ten years earlier resurfaced after her retirement. Martine leaves behind three children: Clara, Jan Bos and Stijn. Her husband, VRT journalist Jos Van Hemelrijck, died in 2019 at the age of 71.
