I don't understand what's going on at Radio Netherlands website. There are "news" items like the one above dated as published in 2007. Has the website quietly reset itself and no-one has noticed? With that kind of foresight how come they didn't anticipate their own demise. Who is this news intended for?
I wrote the first draft of this story a couple of years ago, when I was working at RNW, and backdated it to the 69th birthday of Queen Beatrix, 31 January 2007, in order to make sure that it would stay anchored to the bottom of the "Unpublished" pile until it was needed. Somebody at RNW clearly picked the story up from there on 28 January 2013 when Her Majesty announced her intention to abdicate.
ReplyDeleteStrictly speaking the publication of this story is illegal, since "presenting a realistic image of the Netherlands" is no longer a statutory duty of RNW. It's all about Free Speech in Far-Flung Parts of the World now. Only if one considers that our constitutional monarch is the only person in this country who has no freedom of speech can the appearance of this article be justified.
But I must confess that I felt a pang of nostalgia when the abdication news broke: I would gladly have volunteered for an extended evening shift at the RNW newsdesk. Alas, no more.
Rob Kievit