Nieuwsuur

Nieuwsuur   (Television, Propaganda)
Headquarters	Hilversum, Utrecht, Netherlands
Type	•  public •  propaganda
"See. Question. Know."

Nieuwsuur or News hour is the Dutch main late night current affairs program by public broadcasters NOS and NTR. It is focused on Dutch and European politics and also hosts widely viewed debates, interesting enough mostly between deep politicians or consultants with special interests. Unlike American news channels, Nieuwsuur is a state-funded program with the producing being made by the NOS similar to the BBC. Nieuwsuur calls itself "impartial, independent and not tied to special interests " but steers towards the state official narrative or official opposition narrative in many cases influencing public opinion, including on MH17, Covid-19, Brexit, the War on Terror and also on important national topics like The Dutch War on Drugs. It has a tendency to present less "likeable" stories as a limited modified hangout with the help of (deep) politicians, lobbyists or just plain disinformation agents like Rian van Rijbroek and Julian Assange or Ank Bijleveld on the 2015 Hawija bombing.

Background

Nieuwsuur was formed in 2010 after a fusion between daily political programs "The Hague Today" (ran from 1970) & NOVA and Network (ran from) 1996 after much resistance from the non-public broadcasters that made those two programs. The Dutch public government and NOS public ally declared deemed them "too biased". It was formed during the negotiation and lobbying of the George W. Bush administration for extended Dutch support for War in Afghanistan and Iraq that Jan Peter Balkenende was very keen on, but failed to maintain a coalition government in support for it. With financial sanctions on the public broadcasting apparatus, Nieuwsuur is one of the few remaining current affairs programs on Dutch TV, and was noted to be "more important than the regular news" at the end of the 2010s giving it's role in social control an acknowledged position.

Stories

Seth Rich

When Assange raised the topic of the murder of Seth Rich, his Dutch host commented "That was just a robbery, I believe. Wasn’t it?" Julian Assange replied: "No. There’s no finding. So... I’m suggesting that our sources take risks." He continued to hint that Seth Rich might have been a source for Wikileaks. This raises questions as to why Assange was so vague and whether Rich was an example of a assassination resulting in premature death. Edward Snowden seemingly implied computer scientist Seth Rice was the source of the US Democratic National Committee leaks in 2016.

AIVD

The NOS released an unique article (unique as it was release din English by all dozens on major news outlets, as if it was Sinclair broadcasting) written in English in 2018 revealing the AIVD infiltrated an Russian group of hackers named "Cozy Bear" that was trying to influence American politics, this turned out not... entirely true, as proven by Craig Murray, Wikileaks and William Binney etc, which means the AIVD conducted a psychological operation to support their American counterparts. Surprisingly enough Nieuwsuur didn't stop there but tried to imply the Denial-of-Service attacks on Dutch banks and institutions were being done in retaliation for these revelations. The NOS did admit they had "no evidence" with security consultants agreeing, but still continued to run the story, making it an quite extreme example of creating enemy images or in this case Russiopohbia. Similar to other cases, an 18 year old turned out to be the culprit and was interviewed in newspaper The Telegraaf.

In July 2019 the AIVD tried to prohibit Dutch journalist Huib Modderkolk from releasing a book that was planning to reveal the name of the operation and a foreign spook that cooperated in the Cozy Bear case. The case was noted by lawyers to be very strange as the AIVD seemingly tried to censor parts that were requested with public sources, before he finished the book. The AIVD won the case even though Modderkolk had already removed details after he e-mailed them a concept version. Modderkolk started investigating after he produced an article regarding the sources of wikileaks and his office was inexplicably hit with power outrage which he and his colleague suspected was done deliberate. Modderkolk worked 6 years on this book and among other things revealed the CIA often utilized the AIVD for quite intensive tasks (including aggressive cyber warfare such as involvement in the spreading of the Stuxnet-virus in Iran]) that the AIVD got nothing back for return. Among other things, the book is full of interesting questionable decisions by the AIVD, including the "suicide" of infant-hackers, giving the CIA classified information for drone attacks killing more children, GCHQ hacking European institutions with the protection of Europol or the fact that Russian cyber security company Kaspersky was targeted multiple times for alleged cooperation with the FSB, giving Rian van Rijbroek's "ludicrous" allegations some strange coincidences. Modderkolk is de facto the only book about the AIVD that was allowed in Nieuwsuur raising questions why the book was so publicized in the first place.

Rian van Rijbroek

Being presented as a consultant for intelligence agencies and former NSA officer by former Dutch Minister Willem Vermeend, Rian van Rijbroek appeared live on Dutch current affairs program Nieuwsuur on the 25th of January 2018 in a peculiar 5 minute segment regarding the latest Denial-of-service attack on Dutch banks. Van Rijbroek blamed Russia, Iran and North Korea for the attacks on the Dutch banks, government institutions and other sites. Citing an "intelligence agency that shared those details with her today", she proclaimed these groups to be testing the security-systems before letting "ATMs spit money as seen in the US" (a method known as "jackpotting", which she didn't mention and although known in the US, but requiring physical proximity to the ATM and not a denial-of-service attack). As a solution she proposed switching to a blockchain (a central mechanism in all cryptocurrencies) and the use of external networks for citizens (VPNs) when online banking and stop using mobile banking applications altogether.

Following many cybersecurity-experts voicing their frustration about the segment, the NOS released a statement a week later in which all her statements were invalidated by IT-professionals while apologizing for "causing confusion with the speculations van Rijbroek made", with the Assistant-Editor remarking "she told different things instead of what was rehearsed with her". An 18 year old was arrested and charged for the attacks on the 1st of February.. The NOS never revealed was was rehearsed with her.

Debates

A Turkish minister gets attacked and placed in another car on TV. Nieuwsuur revealed Rotterdam Mayor Aboutaleb authorized the police to.. arrest the minister and shoot at will if she or the guards didn't comply. Interesting.

Niewsuur has hosted multiple prolific debates. In one days before the 2017 Dutch General Elections, Prime Minister Mark Rutte was put against a former student - he is a part-time high school teacher - following a diplomatic incident resulting in riots that was noted to have influenced the election. The riots started after Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya - Minister of Family and Social Policies - was denied entrance to the Turkish embassy in Rotterdam to speak on the topic of the Turkish referendum. Rutte and Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb and ministers Lodewijk Asscher and Bert Koenders denied Kaya entrance as they didn't want the Turkish government to campaign on.... Turkish soil at the balcony of the embassy after the Turkish government was denied to enter Dutch airspace entirely.

The Turkish actually negotiated the session and cut those off after the Dutch increasingly tried to alter the details of the speech, something not legal under EU law. Dutch police, special intervention teams and SWAT teams followed the Turkish convoy, encircled them and ordered them to follow a Dutch convoy back to Germany or the embassy to be closed. Kaya refused for hours with her convoy threatening to "become martyrs" until she was assaulted by police personnel and being restrained and driven out of the country. The 17 year old student was most noticeably angered by the statements Rutte made on Dutch TV when being confronted with footage of the Turkish rioters calling the NOS "fake-news" and assaulting the camera crew live on TV. Rutte said in reaction that the Turkish-Dutch citizens should "bugger off" themselves.

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