By: Sara Oliveira
Picture credits: Fraud Film Festival
Name: Bart de Koning
Occupation: Investigative journalist at Follow the Money
Specialization: Corruption, fraud, privacy, and surveillance
Notable work: Vriendjespolitiek, The EU Files
“Orwell’s 1984 was meant as a warning, not a guidebook”, says Bart de Koning. The Dutch investigative journalist for Follow the Money has spent decades uncovering corruption, witnessing threats, and even murder, all while navigating an increasingly hostile media landscape.
Sitting in his book-filled office, where he works from home, de Koning reflects on the toll his 30 years of experience and economics background have had on his view of journalism’s future. “I’m worried,” he admits. “Democracy is under attack, and journalists are being vilified. Even in The Netherlands, politicians call us ‘the scum of the earth’”.
However, the threats in The Netherlands go beyond words, as de Koning recalls the murder of a crime reporter in the capital. “In 2021, the most famous crime reporter in The Netherlands, Peter R. de Vries, was shot dead in Amsterdam. That was quite a shock. Meanwhile, several journalists had serious threats”.
According to de Koning, multiple Dutch journalists are under constant protection from the police. Through the camera of his computer, his smile fades as he says: “I know people who have been shot by criminals. It’s getting very dangerous”.
Regardless, he expresses an understanding that these risks are, unfortunately, inherent to the profession. “It’s hard to live like that, but they keep working. They have to bear with it. That’s the only thing you can do”, he says.
Yet, beneath the resilience, a heartbreaking thought lingers. As his voice cracks with worry for the future, he says: “I sometimes wonder, I have two children. What have we done? Put them in this world? Sometimes I think I shouldn’t be a journalist. I just want to be a gardener or a farmer. Go to work every morning, chop down a tree with an axe, and then go home. Keep it simple. But unfortunately, this isn’t the time to quit journalism”.
It’s this very uncertainty about the future that makes him uneasy about the state of the world. “What’s really scary is that we live in what they call a post-truth society,” he adds, shifting his focus to the broader dangers that threaten the truth itself.
“We are suffering from an information overload. Nonsense is pumped into the air and onto the internet. In the end, nobody believes anything, and that’s the real danger—that people become nihilistic, thinking nothing is true, that everything is a lie, and everyone is a liar. It’s very difficult to keep the truth alive”.
He compares the current state of the media to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, but in our reality, the images projected on the walls are of lions running after us: “We are on full alert all the time and we weren’t made for it”.
Despite the overload of information and the overwhelming weight of what he witnesses, he has developed ways to cope. “Sometimes all you can do is shut down. I try to limit visual news and prefer reading instead. For instance, I can’t stand hearing Trump’s voice, so I just read about him rather than watching videos”.
He finds peace in meditation and philosophy. “The only thing you can do is meditate or something like that, try to get rid of the negative part of the job. I also read, I enjoy reading about philosophy, it helps me make sense of the world in a different way”.
Despite the challenges, de Koning remains hopeful: “The great thing is that there are still a lot of young people who want to do this and are enthusiastic about it. That’s always a good thing, to see that the fight is still going on, because without journalists, democracy dies in darkness”.