Undercover with the extreme right

After four months spent posing as an intern in the ranks of the PVV (Party for Freedom), journalist Karen Geurtsen has published the first section of a three-part feature on Geert Wilders' xenophobic party in the weekly, HP/De Tijd. Geurtsen, who had no trouble joining Wilders' team, explains that her main goal was to "investigate the threat posed" by the party led by the Netherlands' most controversial politician. The first part of her "PVV Journal" includes a major scoop: it appears, that in private Wilders admitted that his plan to tax veiled women, announced last December, had gone too far — an allegation immediately denied by the PVV leader. The undercover operation mounted by HP/De Tijd has not been universally well received: some readers have accused the weekly of "puerile spying" in a shameless attempt to boost its circulation, while others have reproached it for using "gutter press" methods. In particular, NRC Next has criticized what it believes to be a failure to respect professional ethics.