NOS newsreader Harmen Siezen (84) saw himself as ‘a shy man with a strange profession’

Harmen Siezen gave the NOS Journaal a human face: « Always a Lord and sometimes a subtle joke with a cautious but scalse smile. » For example, Minister Eppo Bruins (Media, NSC) responded to the death of the newsreader on Saturday.

Harmen Siezen (84) presented the NOS Journaal from 1969 to 2002 and was the personification of the TV news for many viewers, which was broadcast simultaneously on the two nets in the early years. Siezen started at the time when news readers were still ‘petrified’ behind their desk, he said in the book The icons of the NOS Achtuurjournaal (2012): « No smile, nothing. » The looser style that made up in the 1980s fit it better. « He had a kind of lightness, a cheerfulness, and also authority, » typed former colleague Marga van Praag, according to the NOS.

He was regularly voted the best newsreader of the year, but that did not make much impression on him: « If I would ask here who they think the best newsreader, they also say that I am » (« icons », 2012). It was just a job, he knew. « It’s not about me, but about the messages. I’m a hatch. In fact, I am a shy man with a strange profession. »

Although he presented more than seventeen thousand broadcasts with perfect self -control, it will be remembered that one time he laughed. During the ‘saddle pain’ item in 1991, he was no longer able to restrain himself, especially because he saw the technicians roll over the ground on the other side of the window. According to Siezen, he had to read that saddle pain could lead to « decreasing the sexual interest » (there was « libido » but he thought that was too difficult a word) while in the picture « stupid old cocks » « cycled by. He found that combination irresistible.

Father to Berlin

Harmen Siezen was born on Boxing Day in the 1940 war year in the hospital of Noordgouwe, on the Zeeland island of Schouwen-Duivenland. He grew up in the Near Ring Village Dreischor where his father was a minister. Because of that work, the family had to move a few times, to the sorrow of the young Siezen: Zaltbommel, The Hague, Peize and eventually Rotterdam. They read at home Het ParoolSiezen liked to listen to the sports reports on the radio and then imitated them with a band recorder. When he was at the gymnasium, his father left the family for a job in Berlin: « He said: I have to tell you something. I’m going away now. I am leaving your mother. » For Siezen that was a big shock: « Divorce in the 1950s, that was something! I was ashamed of it, always said he was on vacation. »

Siezen started in 1962 at the Haagse location of the American news agency UPI, switched in 1963 to the radio pirate Radio Veronica who broadcast from a ship on the North Sea. In 1966 he came to current affairs section TROS ACTUA And in 1969 he started as a reporter at the NOS Journal. The veterans Frits Thors and Rien Huizing gave him lessons in news after the broadcasts. The first time on TV he had the nerves: « Then I thought for a moment: Oh, my God. You then consider that all those people are watching you. » But that quickly passed during the broadcast.

Siezen remained almost continuously with it for 33 years NOS Journal. Only in 1989 did he leave for TV10, the commercial broadcaster of Joop van den Ende, who ultimately received no temporary employment permit, after which the producer had to dismiss everyone. Siezen told in ‘icons’ that Van den Ende paternal put an arm around his shoulder and said: « That was not for you, Harmen, you are a boy for a solid club, with a retirement. » Siezen was again hired at the NOS, but was no longer allowed to present the eight -hour news.

Of the many world fires that Siezen Keieken did, the flight disaster on Tenerife of 1977 – the largest ever – has remained the most with him. He flew to the Spanish island as a reporter and saw the more than five hundred victims in a shed. Siezen was also the man who had to report the death of Pim Fortuyn to the Netherlands on 6 May 2002, directly in the six -hour journal. The radical-right politician was murdered around the corner at the NOS studio. « My wife was watching at home with our 4-year-old granddaughter Pien. She also saw the bloody Fortuyn. He has pain in his knee, my wife said » (« Icons, » 2011).

Rocky Over The Rainbow

In September 2002 he stopped the news. He had clearly said that he wanted to leave with silent drum, but during the last broadcast, colleague Philip Freriks came in the decor with a bunch of flowers and a farewell word. Siezen didn’t like it: « I found those flowers horrible, I was really angry about it. »

He never missed the work afterwards, he said later. He showed some regret that he had always stayed with the news, while his humorous, loose side came into his own in, for example, the National News Quiz which he also presented, or in the story role he had in the musical parody Rocky Over The Rainbow (2001), in which he introduced himself with: « You know me until here. Tonight you can see that I also have legs. »

Siezen enjoyed the pension with his wife in the village of Hoevelaken in Gelderland where they lived for more than half a century. « I no longer have to go on TV. When the next generation is forgotten, I think it’s good too. » They had a holiday home on Schouwen Duivenland. Sometimes he was ‘recognized’ there, he told in the elderly magazine in 2017 Plus. Then they shouted: « Hey Fred Emmer. Are you still on television? » Siezen then replied: « No, I’m Joop van Zijl. »