The Belgian company DPG Media, the publisher of newspapers such as de Volkskrant, Trouw, AD and Het Parool, fired director-publisher Jaak Smeets in 2016 because of sexually transgressive behaviour. The company confirmed this after entrepreneur Yves Gijrath revealed it in his podcast The Gygs, writes, among other things, de Volkskrant.
Smeets is said to have repeatedly forced himself on female employees. In 2016, one of the victims informed the chief executive, CEO Christian van Thillo. He called in an external researcher who found that Smeets had made a number of “inappropriate advances”. That led to a reprimand. Shortly afterwards, when the management again received a complaint about Smeets, he was fired.
Reason for dismissal not disclosed
The departure was made public, but DPG did not disclose the reason at the time. It was suggested that Smeets left on his own initiative. Van Thillo openly thanked him for the essential role he had played in the company as a leader, inspirer and inspirer.
Van Thillo has confirmed the reason for the dismissal to Gijrath. According to Van Thillo, the reason was not disclosed at the request of the victims. Several editors-in-chief of DPG newspapers were also aware of Smeets’ misconduct at the time, but decided not to publish about it.
De Volkskrant writes that the then editor-in-chief Philippe Remarque mainly saw it as an “internal personnel matter”. According to Remarque and Trouw editor-in-chief Cees van der Laan, before the outbreak of the MeToo discussion, there was hardly any journalistic attention for transgressive behaviour.
“Given the current discussion and the importance of it, that consideration might now turn out differently,” says Van der Laan in Trouw.
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