Head of the NTR Frans Jennekens and Senior Producer Hans Twint of the "Caribisch Netwerk” met with local media houses on March 25th 2013, to sign an agreement for the use of their website. After the disappearance of Radio Netherlands, this website is primarily at the insistence of the media on the islands of the Dutch Caribbean.
The website is a public news website that the partners offer for free as additional source of news. Frans and Hans did a round-up of media on other islands. The public can log on to http://caribischnetwerk.ntr.nl/
An informative broadcasting session was held on Monday night at the Sheer Restaurant on Front Street for members of the St. Maarten media to become acquainted with Frans Jennekens and Hans Twint of Dutch public broadcaster NTR. Jennekens is the head of NTR while Twint functions as a senior producer. The two are visiting the Dutch Caribbean Islands to promote the Dutch Ministry of Education and Culture’s new broadcasting service Caribisch Netwerk.
Their visit includes the signing of agreements with media houses and independent individuals who are interested in joining the Caribisch Netwerk team. For now a website has been setup http://caribischnetwerk.ntr.nl where residents of the Dutch Caribbean can read articles, listen to radio productions or watch video features. The site covers news from a variety of publications in Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, St. Maarten, Saba, St. Eustatius and news from the Netherlands relevant to the Dutch Caribbean.
In an exclusive interview, coordinator of the network Jean Mentens told 98.1 Pearl FM Radio that after the abolition of the Radio Netherlands World Service, a void was created since there was no public news service in this part of the Kingdom.
Caribisch Netwerk was therefore formed to engage local correspondents on the various islands to produce news for broadcast and print. The network also follows the Antillean and Aruban community in the Netherlands and the political decision in The Hague, which has consequences for the six islands and / or for the Caribbean community in the Netherlands.
Correspondents, who had previously collaborated with Radio Netherlands World Service, have already signaled their intention to continue the working relationship with Caribisch Netwerk, Mentens added. He also spoke extensively of the background of the correspondents, who this time around, are exclusively from the Dutch Caribbean.
The local people will be able to give more content, passion and understanding to the socio-economic, cultural and political realities of this part of the Kingdom, than a Dutch person, who visits the Region, to produce a feature, Mentens explained.
Although the network will broadcast exclusively in Dutch, Mentens noted that the possibility exists for broadcasts to be made in English, in the case of St. Maarten and Papiamentu in the case of Curacao in the future.
This however hinges on the availability of funds by the Dutch government to expand the network. Financial difficulties have also stymied the production of Dutch news for dissemination to the Caribbean as well, Mentens noted. He indicated that he is fully aware of the fact that many fluent Dutch speakers who are residing in the Caribbean and the families of people who are living in Netherlands, want to know what is happening in that part of the Kingdom.
Suggestions for a network that serves both sides of the Kingdom have been plentiful, however the Ministry of Education and Culture has not budgeted for same, Mentens reiterated.
NTR supplies television and radio programming of an educational and cultural nature to the Netherlands Public Broadcasting system. It was created in 2010, following the merger of the Dutch Programme Foundation (Nederlandse Programma Stichting-NPS) and two educational broadcasters Teleac and RVU.
From left to right Hans Twint ,Frans Jennekens and Jean Mentens