The journalistic code is “systematically violated” and a third sanction is imminent. Ongehoord Nederland (ON!) continues to be a topic of discussion within the NPO and leads to parliamentary questions. What happens if the NPO Ongehoord Nederland really imposes a penalty for a third time? Or if NPO asks to withdraw the license?
De derde sanctie is nog niet definitief. ON! krijgt van de NPO extra tijd om te reageren op het voornemen. Staatssecretaris van Media Gunay Uslu liet vrijdag weten het besluit van de NPO af te wachten.
Aanleiding voor de voorgenomen boete is het tweede rapport van de ombudsman van de NPO, dat eind november verscheen. Daarin staat dat in Ongehoord Nieuws stelselmatig de journalistieke code van de publieke omroep wordt overtreden. Zo was in veel uitzendingen sprake van “het systematisch delen van aantoonbaar onjuiste informatie”.
Dat gebeurde zowel door de presentatoren, die foutieve informatie brachten, als door het niet genoeg ondervragen van gasten in het programma.
NPO must request that the license be revoked
The NPO will respond to ON! study first and then make a decision. In addition, consideration is also being given to a request to withdraw the permit, as the NPO previously announced. What that depends on is not clear.
“The recognition of a broadcaster is withdrawn if the board of directors has imposed a sanction at least twice and has made a request for withdrawal,” Uslu wrote in response to parliamentary questions about the continued existence of the broadcaster. “The latter is not the case at the moment.” Only when the NPO makes a request can the minister make that assessment. “I cannot and will not prejudge these matters.”
When Uslu decides to revoke the license, things can go quickly. This is what media lawyer Machteld Robichon of Bureau Brandeis tells NU.nl. “If Uslu sees grounds for withdrawing the license, it will let ON! know. The broadcaster can then comment on this. After that, a decision will be made and the judge can review that decision. All this is a matter of a few months.”
According to Uslu, the broadcaster would then immediately no longer be part of the public order. And therefore no longer entitled to budget or airtime. Robichon expects ON! then lodges an objection and asks the provisional relief judge whether it is possible to suspend the revocation decision. “This way they can continue to broadcast during the objection procedure.”
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Joining is easy, interim evaluation is not
The recent problems arose after the accession of ON!. According to the media lawyer, it is therefore good not only to look at what should happen in the event of violations. The process of joining the public service broadcaster must also be examined. “As a prospective broadcaster you can join fairly easily. But once such a broadcaster has arrived, there are no options for an interim evaluation or for removing a broadcaster from the system. After a number of years you have to show what you But in practice, broadcasters do not disappear from the system afterwards.”
The Board of Broadcasters (CvO), the body in which all public broadcasters have united, announced on Friday that it intends to present an update of the journalistic code at the end of March. This in response to a call from the National Coordinator against Discrimination and Racism. At the end of 2022, he asked the NPO to adjust the code after the NPO ombudsman’s report on ON!.
ON! finds a possible third sanction from the NPO “unjust” and “undemocratic”. “Ongehoord Nederland interprets the intended decision of a third sanction by the NPO board as not constructive and as a revelation of the intention to take broadcaster ON! off the screen,” the board wrote in a statement.
