“In June 2022, we decided to launch an investigation into the work climate at the TV programme De Wereld Draait Door. A lot of people who work in the media already knew that the show’s staff weren’t always treated with kid gloves behind the scenes, but the exact nature and extent of any problematic behaviour remained unclear. 

Due to the personal nature of the interviews we conducted with our sources, we often struggled to gain their trust. But we always stressed that our concern was with the system – not with one person or a few individuals. And as it turned out, there was a widely shared sense of outrage about that system, which motivated many people to set aside their reservations and talk to us. 

Our investigation showed a pattern of transgressive behaviour at De Wereld Draait Door and found that a system had formed that allowed the hit programme to continue despite the misconduct. Dozens of staff members suffered from burnout and developed severe mental health problems, such as anxiety and panic attacks, or reported other harmful consequences. Executives at BNNVara had repeatedly been warned about the programme’s work climate, but had not intervened. 

We spent five months working on the article and ended up talking to more than 70 former staff members. Our article sparked a conversation about workplace behaviour and power relations in the media world.” 

The article on De Wereld Draait Door appeared in the Volkskrant on 18 November 2022. 

“Already many years before the Qatar World Cup, we heard stories about guest workers from impoverished countries who built the stadiums and other infrastructure, in appalling conditions. We knew that many of these people were working themselves to death for very little pay, but we didn’t really know who they were. 

For our investigative series about slavery in Qatar, photographer Patrick Post and I travelled to Bangladesh, from where many underprivileged young men were migrating to Qatar. Our goal was to put a human face on the huge sacrifice that was being made for this World Cup. We made five portraits of guest workers who had returned to their home country and of grieving families whose loved ones had died in Qatar. What we found were regular people, just like you and me, with dreams, hopes, despair, sadness, shame and, miraculously, enormous resilience. 

About a thousand concerned readers came together and organised a crowdfunding campaign, which managed to raise nearly 50,000 euros. I will always cherish the photos and messages I received from Bangladesh, which showed how that money was helping people rebuild their lives. 

My experience in Bangladesh also changed my life as a journalist. I’m more grateful for what I have, and for the simple fact that I was born in the Netherlands, where I don’t have to choose between starvation and slavery.” 

The investigative series The Slaves of Qatar appeared in Trouw in October and November of 2022. 

“As a crime reporter, I uncovered three murders and six attempted murders of residents at a care home in the West Flanders municipality of Oostrozebeke. Despite a secret two-year criminal investigation, the culprit was never caught. Together with reporters from the News City investigative journalism unit, we did reveal that the victims had all received an overdose of insulin, even though none of them were diabetic. 

News City spoke to relatives of the victims, who were completely unaware of what had happened. How could someone have administered the insulin without anyone noticing? Reporters requested all the care home’s inspection reports, which revealed that poor medication policy had been an issue at the facility for years. One journalist went undercover at the facility and, using a hidden camera, recorded how medication wasn’t locked away, but left out for anyone to take.

The Flemish welfare minister found herself in hot water following the revelations. It turned out that inspection reports hadn’t been followed up, and both the killings and the public prosecutor’s investigation had escaped the attention of her ministry’s agencies. When care inspectors visited the home to conduct an unannounced review, they found many more deficiencies. This led to strict follow-up inspections as well as an admission freeze for new residents. 

The care home killings are still unsolved.”

HLN and VTM Nieuws broke the
story of the care home killings on
7 September 2022.  

“She starts yelling. ‘You’re just leaving me out to dry!’ The woman I’m talking to has just learned that she’s not entitled to the 190 euro energy compensation offered by the Dutch government, and she’s panicking. She has no family left, only a dog, which she might lose because she can’t afford to take it to the vet. It’s one of the conversations that will stay with me. Like the cry for help from a mother who was at her wit’s end because she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to keep feeding her children. Or the conversation I had with a customer who, in a blind panic, said he was going to take his own life if we couldn’t offer him a solution. 

I worked in energy provider Budget Energie’s customer service department for seven weeks, donating my salary to the Poverty Fund. My story showed the real-world consequences of skyrocketing energy prices, which was still a fairly abstract issue at the time. And those real-world consequences were dire: people began to panic and became desperate. Many families struggled to make ends meet.

This story resonated with readers, who felt heard, but also with organisations, which are now opening doors that until recently remained closed. And with me, as a journalist. Because I wasn’t just observing things from a distance – the story was happening all around me.”

The article Undercover at an energy giant appeared in the ADR newspapers on 17 December 2022. 

“In my podcast series, Het inzicht, I do what I love most: having meaningful conversations with people who have something to say. Every week, I invite a guest and ask them to share a fundamental insight. 

I want the conversations to stay fresh and relevant for a long time, and ideally each episode should resonate with listeners for days because of the food for thought my guests have given them. There’s only one criterion every episode has to meet: it must teach us something fascinating. Like the geologist Manuel Sintubin (‘Life on earth is one gigantic fluke’) or the philosopher Tinneke Beeckman (‘The idea that you can become anything you want is just totally wrong’).

My specialty doesn’t lie in one particular field, but rather in a genre: the interview. It’s a beautiful profession, because you get free private lessons from thinkers and makers from all kinds of sectors. With podcasting being embraced as a journalistic medium, it seemed like the time was right to try my hand at this new form. And there’s a big upside: I don’t have to transcribe my conversations anymore.” 

The podcast Het inzicht started on 6 September 2022 at De Morgen and ran for 10 episodes last year. 

“I was on the verge of giving up at least three times. I had already written over a hundred articles about Twente multimillionaire Gerard Sanderink and his unusual girlfriend, ‘cyber charlatan’ Rian van Rijbroek, as well as a book. So when DPG Media wanted to make a podcast about Sanderink, I didn’t see the added value, to be honest. It also took ages to make, and while working on the podcast together with Renée van Heteren, it turned out that we had very different ideas about storytelling.

But since it came out, the podcast has been downloaded well over a million times, and In de ban van Rian is DPG Media’s most successful podcast in the Netherlands ever. My struggle with this new medium ended up turning into an exciting adventure thanks to Renée. We wrote scripts together, interviewed people and searched for useful clips. She taught me how to look at the story in a different way and, most importantly, to listen differently.

I never imagined this would be such a success. The best surprise, though, was that the podcast managed to attract a whole new audience: as it turns out, young people are also fascinated by this bizarre saga.” 

The podcast In de ban van Rian started on 23 July 2022 at ADR and ran for 7 episodes last year. 

“It was Niels who had the idea to dig up De Kroongetuigen from the archives. In this successful TV series, which originally aired on VTM, investigators, family members and witnesses recounted the stories of well-known and untold murders in Flanders, from beginning to end. ‘What if we rework the audio tracks and turn them into a podcast?’ he said. That’s how De Kroongetuigen was reborn as a podcast series, and the result has surprised everyone.

Each episode is introduced by former VTM news anchor Birgit Van Mol. Without the TV version’s images, you automatically start visualising the scenes in your head, making the events and testimonies seem even more vivid.

When we launched De Kroongetuigen on the HLN website in January 2022, we immediately felt the connection with our readers-turned-listeners. In total, Niels has now re-edited 22 episodes, which together have racked up more than two million streams. And because of the timeless nature of the stories, they continue to attract thousands of new listeners every day. De Kroongetuigen has won two awards: it took home Best Documentary at the Belgian Podcast Awards, and last January it was awarded the very first Kastaar! – the Flemish media awards for television, radio and digital – in the Podcast category. Truly a great honour.”

The podcast De Kroongetuigen started on 7 January 2022 at HLN and VTM Nieuws and ran for 15 episodes last year.