Remembering Clairy Polak: Award-Winning Journalist and Presenter Who Defied Labels

By our entertainment editors

Sep 01, 2023 at 12:50 PM Update: 8 minutes ago

Journalist and presenter Clairy Polak died on Friday at the age of 67. This is reported by broadcaster HUMAN. Polak had been terminally ill for some time. She made several radio programs and television programs NOVA in Buitenhof.

Polak started in 1988 as an editor at the VARA, for which she started working as a political reporter. In 1995 she switched to the Radio 1 Journal. Three years later, Polak was named radio maker of the year.

In 2002, the journalist returned to VARA, where she became the voice of radio programs such as The Mornings. She stopped doing that when she was asked to join the current affairs program in 2003 NOVA to present. That meant Polak’s television debut. In 2006, the program Buitenhof added to Polak’s resume.

Her presentation style received much praise and Polak received the Sonja Barend Award in 2010 for her conversation with DSB director Hans van Goor.

Polak continued to be seen on TV until her death

When NOVA stopped in 2009 and was replaced by News hour, Polak remained connected to the program as an interviewer. The presenter also remained active on the radio, for example for the NPO Radio 4 program The Classics in With an eye to tomorrow.

Polak was seen in the television program until her death The Philosophical Quintet from broadcaster HUMAN. In it she explored the subject of egocentrism together with philosophical thinkers. She also presented the media program Medialogica.

The journalist was also active as a writer and published several books. So she wrote Beyond Beyondin which she talked about what it’s like to have a partner with dementia.

‘I don’t want to be labeled as leftist’

Polak preferred to make radio than television, she said in interviews. She liked the speed of the medium and she also liked that content on the radio is more dominant. “You have to deal with all kinds of things that I only found distracting: how you look into a camera, how you look, that you have to watch what you do with your hands,” Polak said in 2021 in de Volkskrant about television. “But I’ve learned to embrace that. I play with it now.”

In addition to the Sonja Barend Award, she received other awards, such as the Honorary Silver Travel Microphone in 2014. But there was also criticism: Polak was accused of being too left-wing. Current affairs programs of which Polak was the face or voice received the same criticism.

“The idea is that being critical is the same as being left-wing,” Polak said. “I know that I am a critical journalist and I want to be one. But I don’t want to be dismissed as a left-wing journalist.”

2023-09-01 10:50:18
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