The NPO announced this today. Moreover, the NPO accuses the supervisory board of ‘no effective management and supervision’.
Yesterday the AD revealed that several presenters, including Eva Jinek and Merel Westrik, accuse editor-in-chief Huisjes of creating a culture of fear in the editorial office. For example, women who contradicted him would not have received a contract extension. He is also said to have been guilty of ‘pregnancy discrimination’.
‘Very happy’ with editor-in-chief
It does not happen often that the board of directors of the NPO enters into discussions with the supervisors of a broadcaster in this way. In response to an article in the AD regarding Huisjes’ alleged misconduct, the council stated that it was ‘very happy’ with him. Mariëtte Hamer, the government commissioner for sexual misconduct, also condemned the statements of the WNL supervisory board.
Previously, WNL performed relatively poorly in the report of the Van Rijn committee, which investigated unacceptable behavior at the public broadcaster.
Earlier today, the supervisory board of Omroep WNL announced that it did not recognize the criticism of government commissioner Mariëtte Hamer. Hamer stated that WNL does not take the complaining (former) employees seriously. She said she was ‘very surprised’ regarding this and called on the broadcasters to make clear, joint agreements on how they deal with these types of reports.
Position not up for discussion
“We responded very seriously,” said Fons van Westerloo of the supervisory board. “We conducted a satisfaction survey immediately following Van Rijn’s report. We proposed expanding the editorial staff and we conducted a survey into the working atmosphere at Goedemorgen Nederland. What else should we have done?”
Van Westerloo repeats that Huisjes’ position ‘is not up for discussion’. He says that AD ‘has mainly written down stories of people who left the broadcaster disappointed. Big names such as Sven Kockelmann and Rick Nieman have been working for the broadcaster for years and they have not had any problems.’
