Joop van Tijn

Joop van Tijn (1981)

Joop van Tijn (born September 12, 1938 in Batavia , † September 2, 1997 in Amsterdam ) was a Dutch journalist . From 1991 until his death in 1997 he was editor-in-chief of the weekly political magazine Vrij Nederland .

Life

Rise to one of the most famous interviewers in the Netherlands

Van Tijn spent much of his childhood in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia ). He had already received the basis for his later career through his father, who was a correspondent in Berlin for the daily newspaper Het Vrije Volk and later a civil servant and judge in the Dutch East Indies. Zionism and socialism, represented by his father (Bernard van Tijn was a co-founder of the Indonesian Social Democratic Party), should also play a role.

After the Japanese occupied the Dutch East Indies during the Second World War , van Tijn spent the ages of three to seven in an internment camp run by the occupiers. The family first returned to the Netherlands after the war, but then went back to the Dutch East Indies in 1948, since his father had received the offer to become a judge there, and stayed there until 1951. During this time, van Tijn also learned fluent Malay and speaking local dialect.

Van Tijn studied literature at the University of Amsterdam and was editor-in-chief of Propria Cures , the oldest student magazine in the Netherlands , from 1959 to 1961 . Shortly before completing his studies, he initially worked for Vrij Nederland , which was initially a short guest performance due to his lack of punctuality. Then the editor-in-chief of the Haagse Post , Sylvia Brandts Buys (at that time the only woman in the Netherlands in such a position), brought him into her newspaper, van Tijn never finished his studies. He established himself early on as one of the most famous interviewers in his country. While van Tijn had already spoken to Indonesia's Prime Minister Sukarno in the early years of his work as part of the accompaniment of Foreign Minister Joseph Luns , he would later set the record of having interviewed nine successive Prime Ministers of the Netherlands.

From the age of 24, van Tijn also worked for the broadcasters NOS , VARA and VPRO . This included programs such as the controversial satirical program "Zo is het toevallig nog 's een keer", on which he worked with Jan Blokker and his later Vrij Nederland colleague Rinus Ferdinandusse , and the two programs "Haagsche Kringen" and "Het Capitool ", where he presented political background reports as an interviewer and moderator. In the weekly radio program "Welingelichte Kringen", van Tijn, as the editor in charge, interviewed politicians with colleagues in a disrespectful manner.

As editor of Vrij Nederland

Since 1965 van Tijn worked again for Vrij Nederland , here too he specialized in often lengthy interviews with important people from politics, culture, sport and church. Despite his closeness to the PvdA - Premier den Uyl was a former editor of Vrij Nederland - van Tijn also maintained cordial relations with members of other parties, including party leaders of the VVD . He became an intimate expert on Dutch politics and chronicler of the Uyl, van Agt and Lubbers governments .

During the Yom Kippur War , van Tijn toured Syria with 160 other journalists and later interviewed Israeli politicians such as Moshe Dajan and Shimon Peres . His preoccupation with Israeli politics later prompted him to take a position on his private attitude and Jewish identity, which led him to identify with it in situations where Israel was threatened, as in the case of the Yom Kippur War State moved. In addition to his closeness to Israel and Indonesia, he also felt the same for the United States . He interviewed presidential candidates and wrote about Presidents Nixon , Ford and Carter .

In 1985 van Tijn became deputy editor-in-chief under Rinus Ferdinandusse, also a former editor of Propria Cures , and in 1991 was assimilated as co-editor-in-chief. The paper had its greatest importance at the end of the 1970s for some time. During his time as editor-in-chief, he gradually converted from a newspaper to a magazine. Van Tijn wrote very little from then on, but remained a concise voice on the radio. In 1997, after having become the sole editor-in-chief the year before, van Tijn was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma in the colon . He immediately resigned from his position as editor-in-chief, and van Tijn died three weeks later of the consequences of this illness.

Oddities

In 1975 van Tijn was the first Dutchman to pronounce the word "neuken" ( fuck ) on television .

Awards

• 1983: Anne Vondelingprijs (together with Max van Weezel)

Works

• Inzake het kabinet-Lubbers (with Max van Weezel), Sijthoff / Vrij Nederland, Amsterdam 1986
• Meester op het floret , Balans, Amsterdam 2001 (posthumous selection from van Tijn's journalistic works)

literature

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

Web links

• Obituary in the NRC Handelsblad (Dutch)