Augmented Journalism

A Dutch court has forbidden the Associated Press to use the photos of Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, his wife Princess Maxima and their three daughters, that it distributed a month ago. The heirs to the Dutch throne were shown skiing in a resort in Argentina. According to the court in Amsterdam the four pictures may no longer be made public nor sold, because they are an invasion on the family’s privacy.

The court thinks the Royal Family is entitled to its privacy, especially when they are traveling privately. “They shouldn’t have to be aware always that someone might take a picture and offer it to a newspaper.” Only if a photo is newsworthy and “helps a public debate which is of importance to society.” may it be published, the court says. “This is obviously not the case with these four holiday pictures.” The AP risks a fine of US$35,000 if one of the four pictures is offered to be published.

Willem-Alexander, the Prince of Orange, is very pleased with the verdict of the court. According to the Dutch government information agency RVD (which takes care of all communication concerning the royal family) “the prince and princess think that their children, like other children of their age, should have a youth that is as normal and undisturbed as possible.”

The AP said earlier the pictures were taken from a “respectful” distance, and that the royal family members are public figures. AP staff photographer Natacha Pisarenko happened to be at the ski resort, according to the AP. Moreover, the AP said the photos were newsworthy.

Most of the Dutch news media have freely chosen not to publish photos of the royal family when they are not performing official functions, which is part of RVD’s “Media Code“. However, several Dutch newspapers have published some of the AP pictures. After they were asked to withdraw the photos from circulation, they all did.

The Media Code was published in 2005 by the RVD and more or less restricts photo opportunities for official media to certain orchestrated moments in the year. If, according to a member of the royal family, one of the provisions of the code is violated by a member of the press, then “appropriate measures can be taken”.

The court doesn’t support that view. It doesn’t see the Media Code, which was written unilaterally, as a binding agreement. The royal family can express its wishes, but it is up to the media to decide when they can or cannot publish photos.

Crown Prince Willem-Alexander is the eldest son of the current Dutch monarch, Queen Beatrix and is the heir to the Dutch throne. Like the United Kingdom, the Dutch monarchy is a constitutional monarchy. Princess Maxima is queen-to-be.

The small moonstone in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has always been cherished as proof of the very special relationship between the United States and the Netherlands. The museum even insured the treasure to an amount of $70,000. Now, exactly 40 years after American ambassador J. William Middendorf officially handed it over to prime minister Willem Drees, new research by geologists in Amsterdam proves it is just a piece of petrified wood. Worth no more than $70.

Drees kept the stone as a personal gift until his death in 1988. Afterwards, his son decided that more people should be able to see it and gave it to the Rijksmuseum. What remains uncertain is whether Middendorf – or the Apollo 11 crew that accompanied him – already knew that the stone was a phoney.

Although they know Bill O’Reilly’s response was “as close as you are going to get to admitting you are wrong”, the two Dutch that attacked the FOXnews anchor are working on a new video to prove that Amsterdam is a safe and pleasant city to live in. That’s what they said yesterday in an item on Netwerk, a Dutch public tv station.

After FOXnews depicted Amsterdam as “a cesspool of drugs, corruption, prostitution and crime”, Elian Wils (28) and Robbert Nieuwenhuijs (26), both from Amsterdam, made a video in which they tried to get some nuance into the O’Reilly’s statements. The FOX anchor replied almost immediately with a new item on his FOX news show. See True/Slant for both video’s.

Moreover, Michiel Mulder, a social democrat member of the city council of Amsterdam, has invited O’Reilly to Amsterdam. “The portrayed image of Amsterdam is false and lies far from the truth. Therefore I would like to formally invite you to visit Amsterdam, in order for you to learn about this city, about its beauty, the attraction it has had on 177 different nationalities.” Billvisitus@gmail.com has been opened especially for him.

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Wils and Nieuwenhuijs say they were triggered to make their response because of “all the nonsense” about their city on FOX. “You see a famous American tv anchor who says things that everybody knows are wrong. You could easily see how things were manipulated.” The two were not at all impressed by O’Reilly’s status, Wils says. “We just look at him as a person who proclaims a lot of bullshit. He might be a famous right wing anchor in the U.S. but to me he is just a big prat.”

Nieuwenhuis admits that he was completely surprised by O’Reilly’s second item. “You don’t expect something like that on FOX. After all, our video only had somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 hits on YouTube. When we found out about it, we were quite pleased of course. It was high five.”

Netwerk filmed Wils and Nieuwenhuijs while they were interviewing American tourists for the new video, that is supposed to be ready somewhere next week. One of them is saying that Amsterdam is “definitely safe, there is nothing going on here. You don’t even see any police out here.”

Asked what they would do if O’Reilly would strike back again, Wils says, laughing: “Then we will wait for his invitation to come over to his show. But that will probably not be going to happen.” Nieuwenhuijs: “Then again, it won’t be really necessary, because with our video on YouTube we will reach the whole world anyway.”

At the end of the Netwerk item, Nieuwenhuijs addresses O’Reilly personally, in english. In a direct comment on O’Reilly’s statement that “the way they do statistiscs in the Netherlands is different and it is a small country”, he says: “Come on Bill, the statistics are relative and you know it. And since you script your show up front, I understand that’s as close as you are going to get to admitting that you are wrong.”

True/Slant will publish the new Dutch video as soon as it is available.

UPDATE: a followup on this item can be found here.

Amsterdam as “a cesspool of drugs, corruption, prostitution and crime”, or just a friendly city where people have an open mind and where abuse of drugs is far less a problem than it is in the US? The battle is on, after Elian Wils (28) and Robbert Nieuwenhuijs (26), both from Amsterdam, made a video in which they tried to get some nuance into the recent bold statements about their city by FoxNews anchor Bill O’Reilly.

“It felt really bad to see my city being attacked like that”, Nieuwenhuijs said to Het Parool. So he took O’Reilly’s most striking statements and shot some footage to prove the opposite. He combined it with statistics to show what the capital of the Netherlands really looks like, as compared to the US. For example: Percentage of the population that has ever used cannabis (USA: 40.3%, Netherlands 22.6%), homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants (USA: 5.6, Netherlands 1.2) and the amount of overdose related deaths per million (USA: 38, Netherlands 2.4)

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But of course, Bill Reilly wouldn’t be Bill Reilly if he wouldn’t have found a way to fuel the fire some more. His conclusion about this “very cute propaganda video” is that it stresses the dutch naivity: all the international organised crime comes to the Netherlands because of the dutch permissiveness and lack of enforcement around drugs, O’Reilly states.  ”Amsterdam is a Disney World for those people.”

Nieuwenhuijs’ numbers don’t impress him a bit. “The way they do statistics in the Netherlands is different.” And to silence the remaining people in doubt, O’Reilly finishes his item about Amsterdam with a punchline that has the power to end every debate: ”I don’t even care what’s happening in the Netherlands. All I’m saying: this is coming here, to the United States.”

Americans better be warned.

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Dutch public tv has broadcasted (starting at 06´18´´) an item about the battle between Wils/Nieuwenhuijs and O’Reilly on august 21.

UPDATE: Nieuwenhuijs and Wils have announced that they will produce a new video shortly. It will consist of interviews with American tourists visiting Amsterdam. As soon as it is available, it will be published on True/Slant.

Leaving Aspen is always hard. Flying to Denver, Chicago and finally Amsterdam, might even be harder today. Weather reports promise me a sunny day in Denver, but tornado’s in Chicago and finally severe thunderstorms in Amsterdam. I wouldn’t say I’m afraid of flying, not even under conditions like that. But then again, I’m not quite looking forward to the rest of this day.

Moreover so, because when I flew in last sunday, the situation was exactly the same. International flight UA909 to Chicago was a bumpy one. While landing in Chicago in the midst of a thunderstorm, the runway clearly within sight, the pilot suddenly was ordered to abort his descent because the officials at O’Hare closed the airport. As passengers were screaming out loud, the plane pulled up again and was diverted to Grand Rapids MI, on the other side of Lake Michigan. A relatively small airport, with no customs facilities, so all the passengers had to stay in the plane for the next 4 hours. This was not because O’Hare was closed that long, but Grand Rapids wasn’t able to refuel the plane. No kidding, they had run out of gas.

Ironically most passengers in this plane had been reading USA Today, that had an article on the huge fines (up to 25,000 dollar) for airplane passengers who do not follow up the orders of the cabin crew. So we all knew that we had better listen to them. No revolt broke out in the plane, no one tried to escape, although the doors were opened for a brief moment because one stressed passenger had to be taken to hospital.

Of course the plane finally arrived in Chicago. It was sunday evening, the connecting flights of thousands of passengers (we were not the only ones effected by the temporary closing of O’Hare) had already departed, the lines at customs grew to Soviet proportions and most of the remaining flights were extremely overbooked. Schools would start the next day, people had to go to work, planned family gatherings were at stake, and I wanted to attend the conference I was invited to in Aspen. It was chaos.

The United Airlines customer centres proved to be of no great help either.  When asked if I could get a seat in one of the next planes, the answer was a very friendly “of course you can”, specific gate and flight numbers were given, accompanied by the advise to run to the gate. But there, in full sweat because of the running, seeing the chaotic crowds at the far end of the concourse, this proved to be everything but true. I couldn’t even find my name on the waiting lists that were shown on the screens. And the two pityful ladies at the United Airlines desk couldn’t do anything but calm down angry passengers. There was no way I could get in. Two flights departed, evening turned into night and together with a couple of hundred peers I tried to get some sleep on the plastic benches of O’Hare airport.

Finally, the next day at 7:00 I could leave Chicago. Thunder and lightning still accompanied the plane, which for that reason had to wait for another half hour or so. But I was lucky now. Although in Denver the connecting plane to Aspen had already started boarding, I could still get in. Amsterdam-Aspen, which should have taken me 15 hours, had proven to be a journey of 37 hours.

So now you probably understand why – having seen today’s weather forecasts – I’ll buy some extra magazines for my return trip.  Keep a close eye on flight UA908 to Amsterdam.

UPDATE: 08/21 04:00 AM ET Landed safely at Schiphol Airport, exactly on schedule.

Five American gay couples were married today during the annual Canal Parade in Amsterdam. Mayor Job Cohen performed the ceremonies himself. According to one of the newly married men it was “fantastic” to get a wedding in front of all Amsterdam. “We’re really hoping that getting married here helps to encourage more equal rights in the U.S.”

Today’s Canal Parade has attracted more than half a million spectators, an all time record. They saw about one hundred boats filled with cheering gay people, most of them dressed in pink. Politicians of various parties led the parade. Christian Democrats had their own “holy boat”. For the first time there also was a boat with military representatives in uniform.

Gay Pride -the official name of the annual weekend filled with activities for gays – started yesterday and will continue tomorrow. The Canal Parade is viewed as the weekend’s highlight, but there is also time for debates, lectures and competitions. Although homosexuality is widely accepted in the Netherlands, there still is aversion among some people. One of them painted the sentence “Gays Go To Hell” near the parade.

A video from the national Dutch broadcasting foundation can be found here. The part with one of the the American couples starts at 01′50”. More pictures here.

The leading Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf is sueing the state of the Netherlands because the National Intelligence and Safety Service (AIVD, the “Dutch CIA”) tapped telephone calls of two of their reporters. The newspaper is not only backed by the Journalists Union NVJ and the Society of Editors-in-Chief (NGvH), but also received strong support from representatives of a majority of Dutch parliament.

The tapping procedures found place after De Telegraaf published “state secrets” from within the AIVD, concerning the Dutch support for the American activities in Iraq. According to De Telegraaf, for months the telephone calls of two concerned reporters, as well as the editor-in-chief and a member of the foreign desk, were tapped. They were also followed, the paper says.

Guusje ter Horst, minister of Home Affairs and responsible for the AIVD, doesn’t want to react. “We’ve heard the arguments of the paper and will see each other in court.”

Editor-in-chief Sjuul Paradijs is furious. “The minister has to explain if she authorizeded the tapping practices and if so, why”, he is quoted in his own newspaper. De Telegraaf demands all the gathered information to be destroyed. “Journalists are not untouchable, but still have to be sure they can protect their sources.”

A court in Amsterdam will treat the case on July 16.

UPDATE: While Dutch journalists complain about being telephone tapped by the secret service, Great Britain sees exactly the opposite happening: journalists illegally hacking into the mobile phone messages of numerous public figures. The Guardian reports:

Rupert Murdoch’s News Group News papers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists’ repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories. The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists using private investigators who illegally hacked into the mobile phone messages of numerous public figures to gain unlawful access to confidential personal data, including tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemised phone bills. Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars were all targets of the private investigators.