Margo Smit, ombudsman of the NPO, will investigate Ongehoord Nederland (ON). The reason is the more than 1,900 complaints that she received in a week about the broadcaster. The rain of complaints followed an item on ON, which talked about racism of black people towards white people.
Against NRC Smit says that the complaints about ON are not only complaints about racism “but also about disinformation and misinformation”. Smit emphasizes that there is nothing about racism in the NPO’s journalistic code, but that it can hold broadcasters to the NPO’s values. The ombudsman says it will complete its investigation within three months. “After that, it’s up to the State Secretary again,” said Smit.
The item, which ON aired last Thursday, involved a montage of social media videos depicting mistreatment of white people by black people, according to presenter Arlette Adriani to show “the less exposed side of racism”. Context to the videos shown was lacking and presenter Raisa Blommestijn frequently used the n-word and spoke of “blankophobia”. Out research of the Pointer . program it was later revealed that a racist motif was missing from all four videos from the montage.
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Frederieke Leeflang, the chairman of the board of directors of the NPO, said after the broadcast that ON had “reached the limit of editorial freedom” with the item. The broadcaster itself was not aware of any harm. ON stated in a response „nobody [te] want to offend’ and to have nothing to do with ‘racism, discrimination or incitement to violence’.
In July, ON was already fined almost one hundred thousand euros for violating the journalistic code of the public broadcaster. That fine arose from an earlier investigation by ombudsman Smit, who had concluded that the broadcaster does not know enough to separate facts and opinions in its programs and acts as a conduit.
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