Open Letter: Public Broadcaster or Ideological Activism?
Criticism of the VRT is growing. And rightly so.
More and more Flemings are asking themselves how it is possible that a public broadcaster, funded by the tax contributions of all citizens, increasingly behaves like an ideological platform promoting a single worldview rather than a neutral news organisation.
The recent intervention by Maarten Boudry on De Afspraak was particularly illuminating in that regard. With concrete examples, he exposed how selective, one-sided, and ideologically driven reporting and framing have become. Even presenter Bart Schols appeared visibly taken aback by the findings.
And that goes straight to the heart of the problem.
No one is asking the VRT to produce propaganda for Israel.
No one is asking for uncritical reporting on any government whatsoever.
But what the public is entitled to expect from a public broadcaster is balance, proportionality, pluralism, and intellectual honesty.
Precisely those qualities seem increasingly absent.
Belgium will soon play Iran in the World Cup. Quite rightly, a distinction is made between politics on the one hand and sport or culture on the other. Iranian athletes are not responsible for the bloody regime that oppresses their country.
But at the same time, it is legitimate to ask why the VRT shows hardly any of the moral fervour towards the Iranian regime that it displays towards Israel.
Iran is a regime that has, for decades, been responsible for the oppression of women, public executions, the persecution of homosexuals, the imprisonment and torture of dissidents, the financing of terrorist movements, and the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent victims both at home and abroad.
The regime arms and finances organisations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. It exports instability, extremism, and violence throughout the Middle East.
And yet we do not see the VRT producing in‑depth analysis programmes, sustained moral campaigns, endless panels, daily emotional framing, systematic cultural boycotts, or a constant search for “guilt by association” whenever Iran is discussed.
When Israel is involved, an entirely different journalistic standard suddenly seems to apply.
Why?
Why is Israel systematically treated as the exception to all international norms?
Why does a democratic state governed by the rule of law, attacked after the horrific Hamas terror assaults of 7 October, receive disproportionate and often almost obsessive attention, while far worse regimes and conflicts barely receive comparable journalistic intensity?
Perhaps we should stop speaking of “double standards” and start speaking of one exceptional standard applied only to Israel.
Frustration is also growing over the striking ideological uniformity of certain VRT programmes.
Time and again, the same commentators, academics and activists appear—often from exactly the same political or ideological corner. The debate no longer seems aimed at genuine plurality, but at reinforcing a single dominant vision.
Those who deviate from it are often dismissed as “controversial”, while openly activist voices are presented as neutral experts.
That is no longer balanced journalism.
It increasingly resembles ideological conditioning and moral indoctrination, funded by the taxpayer.
A public broadcaster should be a place where different opinions clash in fair debate—not an echo chamber in which the same voices continually reaffirm the same narratives.
Since 7 October, more and more Jews in Belgium have felt the social climate harden. They see how Israeli artists are targeted, how Jewish symbols are problematised, how religious rights come under pressure, and how the line between “anti-Israel” and antisemitism is becoming ever more blurred.
The VRT bears a significant responsibility in this.
For the media help shape how a society sees, thinks and feels.
A public broadcaster should calm the waters, not fuel social polarisation through selective outrage, activist language, and ideological framing.
The VRT belongs to all Flemings.
Not to one political, cultural, or ideological faction.
Perhaps it is time for some renewed self-reflection.
Ralph Pais
Joods Informatie & Documentatiecentrum
