This article initially would be published on the website of my studies, but due to some problems I have to publish it here. Enjoy!
She had many false identities, she infiltrated in several (criminal) organizations and groups to make stories about them afterwards and she is a big supporter of ‘participating journalism’. I’m talking about Stella Braam, although she isn’t family of me. Braam operated as an undercover / participating journalist in the years 1992 to 2015. I met her recently in Café Scheltema in the city centre of Amsterdam, “the former journalists cafe of The Netherlands” according to Wim, owner of the café.
Vandaag een heel leuk interview met @EerstGeert wat een veelbelovende journalist! Hou hem in de gaten, want hij gaat het ver schoppen🙂
— stella braam (@StellaBraam) January 30, 2020
Stella Braam is born in 1962 in Haarlem, but she grew up in the village of Someren, not very far from Eindhoven. When she got the chance to move to Amsterdam, she took it and and she instantly felt there in her element. She got her first journalism experiences in 1983 and her first undercover project was in begin of the 90s. She wrote many books, for example about the swaggers in Utrecht and Schiphol Airport, Turkish extreme rightwing supporters.
I wanted depth in my work”
Hi Stella, how did you enter the investigative journalism?
“I was 23 years and on a point of ‘what can I do in my life’. I could choose between two jobs: being a politician or journalist. Writing always played a role in my background, for my mother wrote alot, for example poems. After a few jobs at several editorial rooms, I made in 1992 a switch in my life. A colleague and me were writers at an producer’s office, what got work of the Ministry of Health and Sports. I found that too simple, ‘what am I doing here?’.”
“I wanted more depth in my work. I heard lots of the bottom of the job market, there was much low-educated youth. I decided to join them and I wanted to write a article about it. So that happened, De Groene Amsterdammer published it and the next day 4 publishers were on the phone. They all were interested in my story! That is the point I have got my first undercover experiences.”
Stella Braam has much experience of undercover journalism. Photo: Singel Uitgeverijen / Koos Breukel
Do you know in which way the journalism has been changed over the last years?
“There are less journalists with a permanent contract, due to budget cuts. I think half of the journalists nowadays are freelancers, the other half does have a permanent contract and they are overloaded. There was a short time the investigative journalism was bad. But then the Fonds van Bijzondere Journalistieke Projecten (Fund for Special Journalistic Projects, red.) was founded and later even some more initiatives and media, for example Follow The Money. Also crowdfunding is coming has came up recently.”
The normal reporting is too shallow”
I have read you have a different view to the use of undercover journalism. Can you explain that?
“The journalistic view of the use of this is moving. Initially it was a pretty taboo, for papers in particular. They considered it as sensation, they were convinced they have to use the open visor. Now most news media are over. I think journalists write about themes without much talking to people who are affected by those themes. The reporting is too shallow, I don’t want that. I rather see a longtaking impression about what is really going on in these undiscovered worlds.”
How will the investigative journalism be in 10 years according to you?
“I think there will be two developments. The first one is that data journalism will grow rapidly. The consequence of this is that participating journalism will grow later as well, journalists will talk more with people. The second trend is that journalism in general will be more international. Social media has caused this. As a result of it, the world will be much more smaller.”
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