Excerpt:
NRC Handelsblad is arguably the most respected newspaper in the Netherlands. Hans Moll was an editor there for twenty years. He is now retired, and has a few things to say about what he experienced there.
In his new book, Verzwijgen als of het gedrunkt staat, of Hoe de nuance verdween: NRC Handelsblad over Israël, de Islam en het integratiedebat (How the Nuance Vanished: NRC Handelsblad on Israel, Islam, and the Integration Debate), Moll provides a very valuable document of our time: an insider look at the kind of day-to-day reportorial and editorial decision-making, in matters big and small, that leads a newspaper to convey a less than objective view of the world.
Moll's accounts of his professional experiences do not necessarily apply only to his own former employer. Like many other "newspapers of record" across Europe and in the U.S., NRC Handelsblad leans to the left, and the stories Moll tells about his newspaper provide insight into the mentality of journalists and editors at elite dailies ranging from The New York Times to The Guardian to Le Monde.