For the past eight years, he was on the roof of the building where the NOS editorial office in The Hague is housed about every week – sometimes days in a row – around 8 p.m. Explain the political news of that day; explanation and context of what had happened at the Binnenhof. Tonight for the last time, because Ron Fresen (63) stop it.
In one of your last conversations in the NOS Journaal – about the app debate with Hugo de Jonge – did you say politics is hurt† Is it life threatening?
“It is a threat to the system we have. I really think that. If I had had a little more time in that broadcast, I would have said ‘and it is mainly politics that injure itself’.
If you see how the cabinet keeps looking for the edges of not informing or haggling with honesty. And if you then see how the opposition jumps on it and magnifies it to ‘liars’ or ‘clowns’. The people who are supposed to run our country apparently oppose each other in that way. That is an exaggeration on both sides. Just do your job, solve problems, I guess. That’s what people expect from politicians.”
How come it goes the way it does?
“Many people here in The Hague are mainly concerned with themselves, with their own right. They are partly incited by social media. You see it, for example, when submitting motions, which were originally intended to change cabinet policy. It’s been a long time since a proposal won’t make it, but they don’t care, because the point is only to show that they are for something that everyone else is against.
The same applies to selectively filming bits of debate for social media. Just about all parties do that these days. While I think it should be about the arguments for and against, the dilemmas in solving the major problems. Politics is balancing interests and not just peddling your own interests. Hey, that’s a nice one.”
Back to the wounded politicians: you also said that there was no doctor in the room. Now that you quit after 18 years, will one of the potential doctors disappear?
“There is a cramp in the debate and it is getting worse. The cabinet is doing little about it, the opposition and journalism are in the same trap. If you want to do things differently or in a nuanced way, the accusation that you are not critical enough quickly follows.
This week, for example, the issue at D66. there really is what’s up: that party wants to uphold moral values and then such a case arises that does not seem to have been handled correctly. But journalism runs after the House of Representatives faction in a way… While the crisis is not even in that faction, but with the party leadership. You see time and again that journalists do not want to put such fires into perspective, but that they prefer to keep them burning.”
Viewers also love a good fire, right?
“I don’t know whether that is the case. Take the crisis at the CDA in 2010, for example, about whether or not to govern with Wilders. Then I also ran after MPs. But that was about who was going to run this country. While the #MeToo “The affair that is currently taking place at D66 is not about the content. I think people are not really looking forward to this. They do want to hear what party leader Kaag has to say about this, but not that panting with those MPs.”
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