Just another day in the Dutch election campaign.
Geert Wilders posts a photoshopped image (tweet) of Alexander Pechtold his most direct opponent and says ‘Pechtold is protesting alongside Hamas terrorists.’
This is in reaction to the statement by Simone Kukenheim, Alderman of Amsterdam, who said Amsterdam would not recognize fascist policies under a possible Wilders government and could look to secede.
Alexander Pechtold was not amused since he has had to defend himself from death threats caused by these kind of insinuations before. Unlike Wilders Pechtold does not gain that much electorally from having his life put in danger.
This seems to have gotten really under Wilders’s skin (I talk a bit about it at the end of Europe Was Left #4), maybe because a sovereignty move from Amsterdam would effectively make him a foreigner again.
I inquire whether there is a Dutch newspaper that will do their jobs and take him to task for spreading a false image. Margriet Oostveen posting the original tweet works at the Volkskrant. The Volkskrant is what some people in the Netherlands consider to be a quality newspaper.
I don’t get a reply from her but a question back: ‘Which paper are you subscribed to?’ The answer is that I just subscribed to the New York Times. I am actually looking for a Dutch publication right now and can’t find anything suitable.
I offer to buy any article of theirs that is critical of Geert Wilders. I am told I am lazy and I should get lost. I then remember @Disruptia had pointed out that Margriet Oostveen just wrote a fairly neutral piece about Pegida.
Then later that afternoon former politician Tofik Dibi tweets a quote from the same Volkskrant where the political editor of that newspaper Frank Hendrickx in his coverage seems to have written that ‘It is unclear whether the PVV (the political party of which Geert Wilders is the dictator) knew the image was doctored.’
The second tweet is him saying that sentence was removed. I found and purchased the piece on their site using Blendle and I couldn’t find that sentence in it. The article isn’t even that bad but that makes it all the more difficult to understand how something that stupid could end up in there.
This is one case, the above mentioned nuancing of right-wing extremist group Pegida is another and the list goes on and on. The only thing you could say is that the Volkskrant is not as bad as some other Dutch newspapers. But at this point I don’t have much use for effectively slanted, pretending to be fair and balanced reporting.
Finally I said ‘Volkskrant more like Völkische Krant’ which is not fair. I take that back. But they definitely aren’t a Münchener Post either.
