Henri Faas

Henri Faas (born September 8, 1926 in Amsterdam , † September 5, 1990 in The Hague ; also Henry Faas ) was a Dutch journalist and author.

Life

Faas began his time as a journalist in 1946 for the daily de Volkskrant . After his military service in 1947/48 he worked for this newspaper from 1948 to 1950 as an assistant correspondent in London . Faas then moved to the parliamentary editorial office based in The Hague , where he inadvertently wrote Dutch press history in 1957. Faas published the essential parts of Queen Juliana's speech from the throne in advance, which resulted in four cabinet meetings and a year-long lockout of Faas from all government institutions, which, however, was lifted prematurely. This incident, which was given particular gravity due to the decades of journalistic inviolability of the royal family, finally led to the founding of the Raad voor de Journalistiek in 1960 , an institution that roughly corresponds to the German Press Council .

In that year Faas received his own column in de Volkskrant called "Parlementaria", in which he could write under the pseudonym "Wandelganger" with a little greater journalistic freedom and which became a trademark of the newspaper. He was also the Netherlands correspondent for the two daily newspapers The New York Times and Daily Telegraph . In October 1966 Faas was one of the signatories of a critical statement on an internal party paper of the Catholic party KVP , which at that time was still closely associated with de Volkskrant . This declaration called for a more extensive renewal of the party than was provided for in the internal paper. The resignation of Prime Minister Jo Cals in the same month , which was caused by the rejection of the budget by his own parliamentary group, increased the disputes over the direction of the CIP. Faas, who spoke out in favor of an opening of the party to the left, was one of the group of people who founded the CIP left-wing spin-off PPR , which he ultimately joined. The parliamentary reporting of de Volkskrant was from then on notorious for strong PPR burdensomeness, in 1970, Faas but decided not only because of the conflicts of this partiality towards a new career section and took in 1970 a new role as head of the press office of the European Commission in The Hague.

In 1980 Faas, who had been connected to de Volkskrant for several years in his capacity as a member of the Advisory Council , once again became a political issue within the newspaper when he was nominated as a candidate for the successor to Jan van der Pluijm as editor-in-chief. His two demands, a stronger cooperation with the sister newspaper Trouw and a stronger weight of the editorial team in the group management, led to the rejection of his candidacy by the selection committee, even after he had dropped the first demand. 1986 appeared with the book "Termieten & muskieten. Vernieuwing en vernieling in de Nederlandse politiek “Faas' look back at Dutch politics. After his retirement he worked for the VARA radio station for a short time .

Used literature

• Piet Hagen: Journalists in Nederland. Een Persgeschiedenis in portraits. Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam / Antwerp 2002. ISBN 90-295-2222-4 .

Henri Faas in the context of de Volkskrant :

• Joan Hemels: De emancipatie van een dagblad. Geschiedenis van de Volkskrant. Ambo, Baarn 1981. ISBN 90-263-0537-0 .
• Frank de Vree: De metamorfose van een dagblad. A journalistieke is divorced from the Volkskrant. Meulenhoff, Amsterdam 1996. ISBN 90-290-5379-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Leeuwarder Courant , December 6th and 31st, 1990 edition
2. ↑ Jungle World: “What did Beatrix say? - The Dutch royal family has always had a difficult relationship with the press - but the media can no longer be controlled. ”, September 6, 2006 ( Memento of the original from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still Not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ^ De Journalist: “Raad als ijkpunt voor de discussie”, October 20, 2000 (Dutch)

Works

(all books published under the name Henry Faas )

• God, Nederland en de franje. Necrologie van het Nederlandse partijwezen , AW Bruna (Utrecht & Antwerp), 1967.
• Het rode boekje van wandelganger. Lessen in de-maocratie , Bruna & Zoon (Utrecht) 1968.
• Termietes & muskets. Vernieuwing en vernieling in de Nederlandse politiek , Sijthoff (Amsterdam), 1986.

Web links

• Career and interview on dbnl.org (Dutch)
• Henry Faas Archives of the International Institute for Social History (Dutch)