Journalist and presenter Clairy Polak (67) has passed away. Omroep Human announces this. Polak had been terminally ill for some time.
Polak worked for various radio programs and the television sections Buitenhof and NOVA, the predecessor of Nieuwsuur, among others. For the NOS she presented the radio programs NOS Radio 1 Journaal and Met het Oog op Morgen.
For Human she presented Het Filosofisch Kwintet and the critical media program Medialogica for thirteen seasons.
Polak was named best radio maker of the year in 1998 for her work at Radio 1 Journaal, which started in 1995. “She made a very important contribution to getting it to a good journalistic level. Because she insisted that it was well prepared,” says then editor-in-chief Piet van Tellingen. This sometimes led to clashes with colleagues. “Nevertheless, she was always the one who was also willing to help those people further.”
In 2010 she received the Sonja Barend Award for her NOVA interview with Hans van Goor, the second man of the DSB Bank. In 2014 she received the Honorary Silver Travel Microphone for her entire radio career.
Polak said in conversation with de Volkskrant in 2021 that presenting for the radio immediately suited her, for television it took a little more time. “You have to deal with all sorts of things that I just found distracting: how you look into a camera, how you look, how you have to watch what you’re doing with your hands. But I’ve learned to embrace that, I’m playing with it now .”
Just say yes
In the same interview, she said that many things in her career have come to her. “I never had a plan of: I want to become a journalist per se. Or: I want to become a well-known Dutchman, well, a little well-known Dutchman. I always only had to say yes to whatever came my way.”
