The extensive oeuvre of Gerri Eickhof

In the 37 years that Gerri Eickhof was a reporter for the NOS, almost everything on the tube was subject to change, except the presence of Eickhof itself. Until now. Eickhof is retiring. This Sunday he makes his last item for it NOS Journal.

His oeuvre as a reporter is extensive, not only because of the amount of items he made in all those years, but also because of its diversity. Part of the journal viewers will initially think of the items he made by the name Gerri Eickhof with a fur With flaps on his head. Or are on Live Tirade about Ajax In 2009, in which he called his personal frustration (he called the Arena « a megalomaniac flying dish ») about the crisis in which the Amsterdam football club was not hid.

Another item that led to digital fame was about Camping WCs closed due to corona measuresthat he closed (without consultation with his chef) in rhyme. « Even for seasoned campers it is not fun, to always have to poop on a chemical toilet, » he said. That item was then on Radio 1 analyzed By comedian Joep Beuving, who said: « In the handbook » How do I become a cult hero « Gerri Eickhof has his own chapter. »

But Eickhof did not do that for cult status, he said in an interview with de Volkskrant In 2020, his playful items were always employed by the broadcast. It is mainly about how you get 'a subject decent' on the tube, he said. And the balance in the broadcast also played a role for him. « I looked in advance how the journal broadcast was put together. And I thought, Pooh, heavy broadcast.  » It is a perspective, that rhyme over the toilets. It must express that there is a smile and a tear, he says. « A very small tear, in this case. »

Wars and disasters

But Eickhof's work comprises much more than just the items with which he raised himself to a cult reporter. He visited crisis areas worldwide to report on wars and disasters. In His biography He writes: « I have made reports in eight different wars on three different continents, sometimes two, three, four months a year. »

He was in Kosovo, in Iraq and in 1994 in Rwanda, at the time of the genocide. There he visited a hospital where Hutu refugees entered. That hospital was hit by a cholera epidemic. He knew that final editing would cut the images of 'piles' from his item. But by putting in extra 'horrible close-ups', he made sure that « the overview shot of the corpses » remained in it, he says in the Volkskrant interview. He would not do this in natural disasters, but war, he says, is “Man made Miseryand then I think you should show something like that.  »

No, that work was not always nice, he writes too. « As a result, I have seen more deaths than an average funeral director at the first anniversary. » He has been imprisoned several times, although « usually luckily just a few hours. » A kidnapping in Belgrade in 1999 he calls « a low point. »

The « tipping point » came in 2008. When the NOS called him asking if he wanted to go to Georgia, his then seven -year -old son Koen said that he shouldn't go. « Don't go, they shoot you, » he said – and so Eickhof didn't go. A day later, RTL cameraman Stan Storimans died through flying grenade shards after a bombing of the Russian army on the city of Gori.

Interior

After that, due to physical problems (osteoarthritis) it became more difficult for Eickhof to maneuver themselves through unsafe areas. His work therefore focused more on domestic reporting.

There was, however, when Barack Obama was elected President of America, in November 2008. He was in the park in Chicago where Obama would hold his victor's speech. « I believe I was very cheerful then, » he says about that moment. He only slaked a tear in the hotel.

In recent years, since the Black Lives Matter movement emerged, he found that it was difficult to report objectively about racism-related topics. For that reason he has skipped a number of items, such as the report of the BLM demonstration on Dam Square, where the focus was on exceeding the one and a half rule rule. « If you can find someone else, that might be better, » he told his chef. And he also did not want to beat the funeral of Gerard Reve in 2006 because of the « very racist statements » that Reve has made. Reve's partner, Joop Schafthuizen, had six years before his death in an interview with the Varagist indicated that when Eickhof came on television that he and Reve spit to the television. Eickhof himself was proud of that statement. « I thought for a long time, every time I stood in front of the camera: » So. They are spitting again '. That gave me an extraordinary pleasure. « 

Washing machine

In 1988, the year that Eickhof started at the NOS, he also purchased his first own washing machine. This is apparent from one well -known video by VPRO Tegenlichtin which he also shows the purchase receipt as proof. The device has not only washed his clothes all those years, he says, he also organized his thoughts as he looked at the machine. Not long after, the old one gave the Spirit, with the new one he is less happy. They have a long track record, both Eickhof and his washing machine.

That Eickhof's career is now coming to an end, he doesn't mind himself, he said in one last year interview of Panorama. He even looks « somewhat like », but not because of the peace. « Society is no longer so fun and the reporting therefore becomes less pleasant. It's just no longer fun as ten or twenty years ago to tell what's going on in the Netherlands. « 

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