Do foreign correspondents also get paid when there is no news?
That's what a listener of the BNNVARA podcast ‘Everyday Questions’ wondered. I was allowed to answer that question: https://open.spotify.com/episode/792poD8KHFivxX714zq4pF
NPO Radio 1
Odinga goes to court: what does he want? New work for De Volkskrant and VPRO
ODM opposition leader Raila Odinga has gone to court to challenge the result, describing it as "fraudulent", as he alleges there was a pre-planned effort to alter the outcome. Four of the seven electoral commissioners refused to gather behind the outcome of the elections, saying that the way the final results were tallied was "opaque".
What happens now? How do Kenyans feel about Odinga’s move? And what proof does the ‘opposition veteran’ and his legal team have? That’s what I’ve tried to explain to Sophie Derkzen, host of NPO Radio 1’s radio programme Bureau Buitenland - click here to listen to that conversation. For more on the Kenyan elections, you can also read my latest article written for De Volkskrant.
A reportage for De Volkskrant: how Masai are evicted from their land in Northern Tanzania
In northern Tanzania, 165 thousand Maasai herders are driven from their land. After a violent crackdown by the Tanzanian police, at least 2,000 Masai are said to have fled across the border to Kenya, where they are taken in by other herders. "This is an untenable situation."
You can read the whole story in today’s edition of De Volkskrant, or click here. Alternatively, you can listen to this NPO Radio 1 interview with Simone Weimans in Met Het Oog Op Morgen.
A portrait I took of Mr. Kipchoge in the garden of his house.
Bureau Buitenland Uitgelicht: how Eliud Kipchoge is setting up a bicycle training camp
The Greatest Of All Time (🐐), also known as Kenyan marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge, is setting up a new sports camp as part of his own training camp in the northern village of Kaptagat, near Eldoret. With radio host Sophie Derkzen in NPO Radio 1 programme Bureau Buitenland, I talked about what this ‘INEOS Eliud Kipchoge Cycling Academy’ can mean for the cycling scene in Kenya.
Somalia is facing its worst drought in 40 years
Millions of people are facing severe hunger as a result of the worst drought in 40 years in the Horn of Africa. For 8 days, I traveled through the country for Dutch and international media and what we witnessed was heartbreaking and harrowing. People have lost everything because of the drought, children die because of malnutrition.
As the situation deteriorates, aid agencies fear that a focus on the Ukraine crisis is likely to overwhelm the agenda and donors at a critical time for the East African country of Somalia in particular. According to a statement by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, only 3.2 percent ($47.1m) of the required funding ($1.5bn) for its humanitarian response plan has been received so far.
To read some of the stories I worked on, click on the links below:
The Guardian: ‘There is not enough food. The situation is dire’: Somalia’s drought crisis
Der Spiegel: With the World's Attention on Ukraine, Suffering Is Rising Elsewhere
Der Spiegel (pictures): Dürre und Hungersnot in Somalia: Nie wieder – hieß es vor zehn Jahren
NPO Radio 1 (Met Het Oog Op Morgen): Hongersnood dreigt voor miljoenen mensen in Hoorn van Afrika
VICE World News: Russia's Invasion of Ukraine Is Putting Millions of Lives at Risk in Somalia
El País: Somalia se quiebra por la sequía histórica y la invasión rusa de Ucrania
NPO Radio 1 (Humberto): Droogte in Hoorn van Afrika, 500.000 Somaliërs ontheemd
Al Jazeera English: Drought in Somalia worsened by funding gap, Ukraine war
De Morgen: De vergeten hongersnood in Somalië. ‘Door de droogte zijn we alles kwijtgeraakt’
The New York Times: how the ongoing drought is affecting kids in Somalia
Trouw published a four page story I wrote about the drought in Somalia.
Dutch comedian Dolf Jansen showed some of my pictures in Dutch talkshow Khalid & Sophie.
Radio interview: live in NPO Radio 1's 'De Wereld van BNNVARA'
Radio host Stephan Komduur invited me to be his guest on De Wereld van BNNVARA radio programme, which was aired last Sunday evening from 8pm to 10pm. During the first hour, we touched on several subjects, one of them being my trip to Saint-Louis earlier this year. If you understand Dutch, you can check out a visual radio fragment below.
Corona in Kenya: why Nairobi is in lockdown once again
Many countries are gradually relaxing their COVID19 measures as vaccins are rolled out. But even as the first Kenyans are receiving ‘the jab’, president Kenyatta announced tighter corona measures to control a third wave. What’s going on in Kenya? I talked about this with NPO Radio 1 host Stephan Komduur in BNNVARA’s foreign news programme ‘De Wereld van BNNVARA’. You can check out the 18 minute conversation by clicking on this link.
New work: reporting on the Tigray conflict for The Telegraph
Fleeing the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, tens of thousands of people walked days to get to neighboring Sudan, where they are staying in crowded refugee settlements. On assignment for British newspaper The Telegraph, I traveled with Africa correspondents Saskia Houttuin and Will Brown to eastern Sudan, where we were some of the first journalists to talk to refugees.
The Tigrayans told us horrifying stories, about indiscriminate bombings, machete attacks, decapitations and executions. But it’s hard to check if their stories are true, as in Tigray, the electricity and communication services have been cut off for weeks. On top of that, journalists are not allowed to enter the region to do their work independently. And so the only way to get an idea of what might have happened in Northern Ethiopia, is to talk to the many refugees that we found in the camps.
To read some of the stories that Will and Saskia wrote for their newspapers, click through the screenshots below. To read the story I wrote for Trouw’s De Verdieping segment, click here. To hear the radio interview I did for ‘Met Het Oog Op Morgen’, in conversation with Wilfried de Jong, click here. To hear the conversation I had in the ‘NOS Radio 1 Journaal’ with Jurgen van den Berg, together with Africa correspondent Bram Vermeulen, click play on the video underneath the newspaper clippings (or click here). To listen to NOS podcast ‘De Dag’ about the situation in the Sudanese camps, click play on the player below.
In addition to the work I did for The Telegraph, NOS and Trouw, I also worked for NGOs, who are working on the ground to help the Ethiopian refugees. To see some of the work I did for World Food Programme (WFP), click here. The photos I took for Save The Children can be seen here. To see the video interviews and pictures I created for Dutch refugee NGO Stichting Vluchteling, click here. And to see the pictures I took for ZOA, click here.
De Nieuws BV op TV: the first hybrid radio/TV show of NPO Radio 1
Before I left for Kenya, we talked and daydreamed a lot about this concept at my previous employer, NPO Radio 1. But now it is finally here: BNNVARA programme ‘De Nieuws BV’ is the first hybrid Radio 1 show to be broadcasted on both radio and TV (NPO2) at the same time. The broadcasts were already visible on the regular channel of NPO Radio 1, and it looks very good.
The idea behind all of this was simple: talk shows on TV are actually nothing more than beautifully aired radio talkshows, and so you could easily turn a radio talkshow into a TV broadcast. Technically it is slightly more complicated, but there are many possibilities at hand.
The idea of broadcasting "radio on TV" simultaneously has been around for a long time - that’s what I learnt when I started doing more research for De Nieuws BV and later as an online coordinator at Radio 1. I found the best example with our ‘southern neighbors’, the Belgians, where broadcasts are made on both RTBF and La Une.
Just like in Hilversum, there were some major struggles at the Walloon broadcaster. There were claims that “the magic of radio” would disappear, for example (which is largely nonsense, according to my graduation research on 'visual radio'). All struggles and difficulties aside, I think it’s great that a Dutch broadcaster like BNNVARA finally dares to make a move towards a hybrid radio and TV programme, and I’m sure many more NPO Radio 1 shows will follow De Nieuws BV’s lead.
Click here to read more about visual radio, or click here to read more about the work I did at NPO Radio 1.
Podcast De Dag: a talk about COVID19 in Kenya
New assignments and features added
On the ‘Features’ tab of my website, you can see some of my assignments, collaborations, publications and features. I have recently added new work and assignments, like my piece for Musotrees Magazine, the collaboration between NPO Radio 1 program De Nieuws BV and me, a Telegraaf interview and more.
On the ‘Features’ page, you can click on each logo to find out more.
New photography work: Nigeria elections
During our recent trip to Nigeria, where Saskia and I were on assignment for RTL Nieuws and VPRO Bureau Buitenland, we coincidentally were in Lagos when the delayed presidential elections took place. Saskia and I worked on a story about the dangerous impact of fake news on Nigeria’s elections. If you can read Dutch, you can check out the whole story (and see some of my pictures) here.
New pictures published in NRC, Trouw and NPO Radio 1
I couldn’t be more proud of Saskia, who has won a prestigious Dutch award for talented journalists, the ‘Philip Bloemendal Prijs’! The jurors praised her ability to convey difficult stories through “clear texts and powerful imagery”. Saskia works as an Africa correspondent for Dutch media, like TV broadcaster RTL Nieuws, radio program Bureau Buitenland and newspaper Trouw. To read the whole jury report, click here! To check out her great appearance in TV show RTL Late Night, click here.
Last month, my pictures of my girlfriend Saskia and another Dutch Saskia, writer Saskia Noort, were published in several online / print media. Radio station NPO Radio 1 and newspapers NRC Handelsblad and Trouw published my portrait of Saskia Houttuin, which was also included in several press statements. Some of my photographs of Saskia Noort’s trip to Tanzania were shown in this NPO Radio 1 video segment and were used by De Nieuws BV and NPO online.