Let the messages be filled with comfort, warmth and understanding |…
IJmond
I have been a columnist for almost eight years now. That makes me the best as an experienced newsreader and reviewer. at least. That’s what a lot of people seem to expect when I run into them on the street or at a birthday.
I write for the newspaper and have studied journalism, so in the perception of many people I am an embodiment of the newspaper. Or at least a champion of journalism.
The first is not so bad; although I have an angular square (newspaper) headline that comes into its own on paper than on television. And the second is true. Of course I like journalism; as a reader and writer and I follow news. News is a window to an environment in which so many people look around within their own framework.
lighten
Although I am an opinion maker, it gives me peace of mind that news is being released. And that you can color, supplement and sharpen your own opinion through the new data. News as a neutral ally in a dark world overrun and snowed under by others comes a welcome beacon of light.
But while I think it’s essential that news be objective, that doesn’t mean that news doesn’t affect me. That I am neutral as a recipient. Sometimes you read news that you do not want to receive at all. For example because it is irrelevant from being hurtful to you to fake news is to nothing new.
Wouter
But I think the clear news is news that you hope isn’t true. For example, I wish I hadn’t read the news about Wouter Betjes from Beverwijk. The fourteen-year-old student at the Gymnasium Felisenum in Velsen-Zuid and hockey player BHC Overbos collapsed unexpectedly on the hockey field last Sunday.
I didn’t want to read it. Not to let it pass me by, but because I wish this news just wasn’t there. That the matter in itself had not arisen. Not to close my eyes to sadness, but to be open about the fact that this news is not possible. Too unreal. Too unfair. Too elusive and too incomprehensible.
That’s why I hope that everyone who reads this news will go straight to the online condolence register for Wouter fast. Let that register be in everything the opposite of neutral news. Let the messages be colored and subject and filled with comfort, warmth and understanding.
Column
Joris Brussel (1987) is a columnist, writer, (urban) poet and communication strategist. He comes from Velsen-Noord and lives in Beverwijk. Every week he gives his opinion here.