Dutch newspapers more interested in hair of tv host than in reporting on MH17

by

298 innocent people died in summer 2017 after the aircraft they were travelling in was shot down by a BUK surface to air missile launched by a BUK TELAR system from an area controlled by pro Russian separatists.

More than three years later most of the relevant questions remain unanswered! Who did it, what was the motive, why did MH17 fly over an airspace with a potential deadly BUK system on the ground?

Dutch media so far did not do much to investigate MH17. Not only that, Dutch media also fails to even report about relevant events related to MH17!

Today we learned the Dutch journalists are tired of parlementary questions on MH17,

At September 4, 2017 Dutch government finally answered questions asked by members of Parliament Pieter Omtzigt and Van Helvert  about what information Dutch authorities had about the safety of Ukraine airspace. Also answers were given to questions about the archiving of relevant documents. The archiving is important for future study, for example for a ‘parlementaire enquête’.

Dutch government gave evasive answers, stated many documents were secret and some documents could only be seen confidential by Members of Parliament.

Pieter Klein, deputy chief editor of RTL Nieuws and one of the very few journalists in the Netherlands actively searching for truth, expressed himself on Twitter about the latest answers by Dutch government.

Wat een vervelend-ontwijkende antwoorden weer. Zoek de inconsistenties…

— pieter klein ()

Tranlated “What a nasty evasive answers. Search for onconsistencies”. He goes on “Why  so many documents remain confidential? Why should OSCE document remain secret?”

Dutch media report

With all the secrets., an overview here, you would expect the Dutch media to at least report about the latest answers! Not at all. Just Algemeen Dagblad published an article titled ‘Agreements over safety airspace remain secret’ . Some smaller regional newspapers part of the same publishing group copied the article.

There was no mentioning of the publication in any other newspaper, nor on Dutch tv. Dutch blog GeenStijl had a blogpost here.

However Dutch largest newspaper Telegraaf was able to fill 1/3 of a page with news that a Dutch tv host now had longer hair and more blond than before the summerholiday. You are wondering what the priorities of journalists are!

Some journalists understand, some not

This morning I listened to BNR Nieuwsradio. It is a Dutch radio station which has 24/7 news. Geert Jan Hahn, a journalist working for BNR, daily presents what is published in newspapers.However this morning Geert Jan talked about what is not printed in the newspapers. He was surprised that not a single newspaper mentioned that Dutch government is hiding the facts from the public.

Mr Hahn did something which is rarely done by journalists. He sent out a Tweet saying: “sometimes I feel ashamed for my profession. A lot of attention for documentary on Jesse (Dutch politician), boek Gesthuizen (anothe politician) and lecture Buma: not for secrecy on MH17 ”

I can fully understand what Hahn writes!!

BNR De Ochtendspits at 09:30 the same day spent some more time on this. You can listen here to the recording. In the studio was BNR political journalist Jaap Jansen. He tried to explain why there is so little attention in Dutch press on MH17. He started by saying there is a debate on Wednesday in Tweede Kamer on MH17. That is on “the court case that will soon start”.  Wait a minute. It was made public the court case will be held in the Netherlands. When it will start is not known publically but it will certainly not be “soon”.

By the response of Jaap Jansen a certain naivety is shown. Maybe Jansen should talk to Pieter Klein.

Then Jansen continues: “my collegue parlementary journalists including myself are a bit tried of the ever repeating series of questions asked by menbers of Parliament and the same answers by the government saying “wait for the criminal investigation, wait for the court case and we (government) are not obstructing those”.

Journalist Hahn then responds saying “so why all attention for books and docu made by politicians, while not investigating MH17”?

The response by Jaap Jansen : “It is a complex investigation. There is still a little hope Russia will cooperate with the investigation. It is a bit like do not rock the boat. Journalists are focussed on news. Each time questions and the same answers end up in a drawer labelled ‘no news’.

by