Should newspapers abandon digital?

Newspapers are so bad at digital publishing that they should just give up and focus on print. 

That’s the bracing thesis of a recently published mini-book from journalism professor H. Iris Chyi of the University of Texas, who likens what she calls the “inferior quality” of online newspaper offerings to the desiccated ramen noodles that constitute the primary food group for many a starving

Exit programs

A while back the Dutch minister of Justice implemented another 3 million euro anally into exit programs for prostitutes. The idea is of course to help prostitutes who want to exit the program. Question is of course, do prostitutes really want to exit? And if so, do they need help, and what kind of help would be required? Or is an exit program just another way to discourage prostitution?

Let's start off with some facts. Between 2011 and 2013 in total 1750 prostitutes have been a part of the program. This comes down to about 583 prostitutes each year. This is only a very small portion compared to all the prostitutes working in Holland (an estimated 20.000), so it doesn't really look like they're really interested in using these programs in the first place.
Why does only such a small portion of the prostitutes want to use this program? Well, perhaps they don't want to quit. Or maybe some do want to quit, but they don't need anyone's help to do so. Or maybe many don't believe these programs are very helpful.

The current exit programs have a success rate of about 57%, meaning 57% of the prostitutes actually quit their job using these programs if they enter it. This leaves 43% of the prostitutes leaving the programs before they ever exit the industry. This also means that only about 332 prostitutes each year actually quit using these programs.
One might begin to wonder why such a relatively large group of more than 40% chooses to keep working this industry and quits these programs, as opposed to actually continuing the project and getting another job.

What they also didn't count in were how many went back into the job after exiting. Because I know from girls I personally know, that re-entering this job after having quit happens more than most people might think. And the main reason is that other jobs simply don't pay that well like this job does. For example, I knew a girl that used one of these exit programs and ended up working in a restaurant. After about a year working in this restaurant she decided to go back into prostitution. Her reason? It simply paid much better than working in a restaurant.

Girls that start doing this job, most of the times do it for one very simple reason: money. There is no other job on this earth which requires so little skills, schooling and knowledge or experience, yet pays so much. Most girls simply figure they do this job for a couple of years, and after they quit, go back home, and maybe set up a company of their own with the money they made here, buy a house and a car, and live the good life. And that's the goal most girls have for themselves, and they will not quit this job until they reach that goal.

What happens in reality is, that things don't always go the way you want, and it takes up more time than you thought to get all the money together you need for your dreams. A lot of girls for example think they will make a lot of money always. But it doesn't work that way. You don't always make good money, there are good periods and bad periods. So you can't always save up how much you want to. Sometimes even you need to use the money you saved up before, to be able to pay for things when things aren't going well.

Another thing that happens in reality, is that you become addicted to shopping. Especially girls from countries like Romania, Bulgaria en Hungary, who never had the money to buy expensive bags, shoes and clothes. Having all this money, and not spending it on some nice expensive things, is quite a challenge. The idea is that if you're doing this job anyway, you might as well try to look nice now that you have the money for it, what else is the point?
And thus many girls spend thousands of euro's on shoes, clothes, sunglasses, bags and what not, simply because they can afford it now. This quickly turns into an addiction, meaning they stopped saving up money, and most of their money goes to expensive stuff they don't really need.

I know many girls that have the latest fashion from Louis Vuitton and Burberry and all the expensive brands you can imagine almost each day. They spend thousands of euro's a month to look good, but they've been working here for more than a decade already. I'm pretty sure their idea when they came here to do this job, was not to keep doing this job for more than 10 years, but at least being able to wear the most latest fashion. Yet that is what has happened to them. The money corrupts them, and postpones their goals, as it almost did with me.

And this is one of the main reasons why exit programs don't work. Because the exit program doesn't give them what they want, which is a lot of money. It is the reason many that do enter eventually quit before they finish the program. And it's the reason many that did exit the industry, come back into the industry again, simply because with this job they can make much more money, and pays for their expensive lifestyle. So unless an exit program can offer you a job with a salary close to that of a prostitute, it will never become a success.

The best way to have prostitutes exit their industry, is if you help them reach their goal. So, don't help them quit this job, but rather help them saving up the money they want. Giving them another job might help for some girls, but not for most. Since in the end, unless they reach their goal, they will always come back to this job.

Dutch version

Communication between brothel owners and sex workers

Today the media reported that brothel owners have to be able to communicate with sex workers to ensure their safety. It was a decision made by the European Court of Justice, that the sex workers renting rooms from the brothel owners have to speak either Dutch or English.

Personally I don't know any girls that don't speak at least English. So for me, and all the girls I know, this isn't much of a big deal. I do know however there is a group of South-American women working around the Old Church, and those brothel operators speak perfectly good Spanish. I also know the brothel operator who started this court case against the city government, Jan Harmsen, spoke with most of the girls working there in German, since also many Eastern European women speak German in stead of English.

The media however presented it as if the brothel owner was completely unable to talk with the girls at all, which I highly doubt, since it would be impossible to do an intake interview, which is mandatory. But also how do you explain to girls how they can rent a room, how much they have to pay, what the rules are etc. if you can't communicate with them. So the only logical explanation is that he was able to talk with them, just not in English or Dutch but in German, meaning they left that part out to frame the brothel owner as 'the bad guy'. My guess is also that it's not the media themselves which wrote this article, but that it comes from the office of the mayor, who intentionally wants to frame brothel owners as bad people, in order to close down windows.

Basically this decision from the court comes down to restricting the languages only to Dutch or English, not allowing Spanish or German anymore, which before were still allowed. In short it comes down to down sizing brothel owners their market, making it more difficult for them to rent out windows, since now they are only allowed to rent them out to people who speak either Dutch or English, and not also German and Spanish like before.
Also I feel a bit like sex workers yet again are being made into an exception, since other industries with a high chance of trafficking are not obliged to speak only Dutch or English, but can allow anyone to work in their business.

In my own opinion I do think sex workers should be able to speak English at least. After all, many of our clients come from all over the world, so not being able to speak any English at all would make your work in the Red Light District nearby impossible. But It would also prevent a lot of fights between the customer and sex workers, due to a communication problem. I also think that perhaps the accusations of the girls not being able to talk any English are exaggerated, for sure they know some English, but I think they mainly communicated with their brothel owner in German.
But like I said, I also don't know any women that don't speak any English at all. But with some brothel owners it is already a rule that you need to speak English mandatory.

All in all, the articles in the media surrounding this court case seem to be very one sided, and incorrect. But I'm not surprised, since it was a court case against the city government, who are still trying to close down windows. And with the decision today of the mayor to run for a second term as mayor, I doubt he will keep true to his word to close down less windows. After all, he also promised us to write us a letter, which we still haven't received.

Dutch version

Apple, Google and Facebook zero in on news

With Apple, Facebook and Google promoting powerful news-delivery platforms, the best days may be in the rearview mirror for the dedicated news apps produced by media companies and a host of independent players. 

Leveraging their enormous audiences, vast troves of user data and state-of-the-art targeting algorithms, the Silicon Valley behemoths have created master applications to deliver

Retail ad spending is speeding to mobile

There are few industries where mobile is having as big an impact as the disruption it is bringing to retailing. This should make publishers nervous. Very nervous. 

Though the rising popularity of mobile commerce may be great for consumers and could be pretty good for merchants, the phenomenon poses a sharp challenge to newspaper publishers, who rely on retailers to generate half of the roughly

Prostitution card for free entrepreneurship

A few days ago Maria Ruigrok from the VVD in Amsterdam came up with an interesting idea. A prostitution pass for prostitutes. The idea behind it is so you don't have to do an intake interview with each brothel owner every time you move to a new one, but that this can be done in one place. In short, it saves you having to do a new intake each time with a new brothel owner. In stead of separately with each brothel owner, you just do the intake in one place, and you'll get a card that proves you've done such an intake already.

According to Maria Ruigrok this is to make the prostitute less depending on the brothel owners. But this is kinda where she goes wrong. She assumes, like so many other people, that the brothel owners would be the problem for us. Fact is that for most girls this is not the case. In fact, 84% of the prostitutes is very positive about the brothel owners, as a recent research showed in the Red Light District. The most heard complaint about brothel owners are the rules, but than again, the brothel owners don't make all those new rules, that's the city government. So it's really more of a complaint about the city government, most girls however simply don't know it was the city government and not the brothel owner that came up with these new rules.

But I also fail to see how it would make us less depending on the brothel owners. Maria Ruigrok seems to have the idea we can't switch from brothels for some kind of reason, but that's not true at all. In fact, many girls switch from brothel owner to brothel owner. That's not because they want to switch each time, but because the city government has closed down so many windows, there's no place in the night for all the girls, so the girls keep having to move from one brothel owner on one day, to the next brothel owner the next day.

So this 'prostitution pass' won't give us more freedom of choice in choosing which brothel we want to work in. That isn't a problem right now, so there's no problem to 'fix' there. The problem there is however, is the fact that many girls have to move, because there aren't enough places due to the closures. That's the problem we asked a solution for at the demonstration on the 9th of April. And to be able to choose between brothel owners, there first of all has to be choice, which is something the city government has been heavily reducing in recent years.

But what worries me most is who gets the information from these intake interviews. At this moment our brothel owners get this information, and we trust them with it. After all, we see our brothel owner each day, and like I said, most have a good relationship with them. We trust our information more with them, than with a government which is adamant on closing down our workplaces.
And this is where the problem may be. If the only benefit of having this prostitution pass, is that you don't have to do so many intake interviews, not many girls will do it. Why? Most girls simply don't care. They've already done so many intake interviews, they're used to it, and they're not scared of their privacy towards the brothel owners. What they are scared about however, is this information ending up with the city government, which we don't trust because they've been closing down our workplaces for years. And I think most girls will be scared this information will be used to close down brothels, which is something we don't want, so most won't do it.

Another notion Maria Ruigrok stated, was that it would show we would do this job voluntarily. It's a strange thing. No other business owner in the world has to prove he or she is doing the job voluntarily, so why should I? Just because a lot of people are lying about how many girls are being forced into this job? Most recent statistic I got from a reliable source, was that the total amount of victims of human trafficking from the Red Light District last year was 7 girls. In a place where there are about 600-700 women working! That's fucking 1%! So why do I constantly have to prove I'm not forced, if only 1% is possibly a victim?! Just because a bunch of religious fanatics and radical feminists claim these things in their disgust towards prostitution?! And besides, it is already proven I'm doing this voluntarily, since the same intake interview is already being done by the brothel owners, so I don't see what this pass would change about it.

The only benefit for us, is that we don't have to do a new intake with each separate brothel owner. But if that's the benefit, 80% of the girls won't do it, since they don't have a problem with their brothel owners doing these intakes. Which, according to the logic of Maria Ruigrok, would subsequently imply we would be forced, because we don't get this prostitution pass 'proving' we're doing this voluntarily. I don't know, but this is already being proven twice a year, when my brothel owner has to do an intake interview with me. I don't see how another person asking these questions would change me being voluntarily working or not?

But there are also some good things about this idea. It's not all bad, it's got both good and bad things. The good thing about this system, is that it would relieve the brothel owner of their responsibility of checking who's forced and who's not. At this moment they are the ones doing it, and the risk is great, because if they don't do it correctly, they loose their permit. Relieving this responsibility from them, would take away a reason for the city government to try and close them down based on intake interviews, which is good for them. After all, most brothel owners don't want this responsibility, as it risks their entire business on one intake interview, and they don't feel they're capable of recognizing human trafficking. After all, they're people renting out business places, they're not trained psychologists or detectives.

This is a good thing, since the city government in recent years has constantly tried to find reasons to close down brothels. The intake was their ultimate weapon. If the brothel owner would give a room to a girl who was forced, because she passed the intake interview, the brothel owner would be held accountable because he did the intake, and could loose his permit. By taking this away from the brothel owners, you're basically taking away an excuse to close them down, which is something I'm happy about.

What I don't understand however, is how this would make me more independent? After all, I can already choose where I can work, this pass doesn't change a thing about that, except that I don't have to do another intake interview. But since we've already all took those intake interviews so many times already, this isn't very much of an issue with the girls. Also the privacy towards brothel owners is a little bit of a dumb argument. After all, they already know who we are, since they have to check our papers each time. And we trust out brothel owners more than the city government. So how does it make me more independent? Where's the benefit for me? Girls certainly won't feel more comfortable doing this intake interview with a city government they don't trust at all, while they can do it with their brothel owners which they're very positive about.

But Maria Ruigrok wants to do a pilot with this. I think it could be interesting to see how it works, and see if we can create any benefits for ourselves, rather than brothel owners. But what I don't understand is that she wants to test this out with the 'city brothel'. The city brothel is another plan of the city government to let sex workers run their own brothel. In short, the sex workers become their own brothel operators. But if the sex workers are their own brothel operators, why would they need this prostitution pass? After all, they are the brothel owners, so the one that does the intake interview at the brothel is, well... themselves! So why would they do an intake interview somewhere else, with a city government they don't trust?

If I can give any advice to Maria Ruigrok, it would be not to pilot this in the city brothel, but in a regular brothel. After all, the city brothel itself is already a test case, so they've got enough stuff to figure out already. Adding another test case on top of this may be too much. And above all, what might work in that brothel, might not work for the other brothels which are run by brothel owners, and not sex workers. And wasn't the whole idea of this prostitution pass to relief the brothel owner of it's responsibilities, and giving the sex worker more privacy from the brothel owners?

If you want to pilot such a thing, don't pick one brothel, but just do a pilot and let's see how many girls do it, from whatever brothel they come. If few girls show up, perhaps this will say something about trust the girls have in governments in this country. And perhaps it will also say something about the lack of benefits this prostitution pass offers. One or more or less intake interview? Who cares! And besides, how can I have more freedom of choice where to work, when the city government has reduced the choice with 33%, and still is planning to close down more? What choice is there, if most of my choices are being taken away by the city government itself?

Maria Ruigrok believes this pass would also perhaps give us more chance of getting a business bank account, or a mortgage or a disability insurance. First of all I think it's ridiculous we would need a pass to achieve something like this, simply because the financial industry discriminates us. Why do we have to do something extra because they are discriminating us? But more importantly, the reason they refuse us is because we are sex workers. A pass that proves you are a sex worker doesn't exactly change that, in fact, it confirms it, so I don't see how this would help. Also I don't really think banks would change their minds about sex work, simply because we have a 'prostitution pass'. They don't want us, because we are from the sex industry, an industry most businesses want to stay far away from being associated with, especially banks who rely a lot on trust. After all, let's not forget that it was the National Bank who fired one of their employees because she was working as a part time sex worker.

This pass will not work unless more benefits are created for the sex workers. The argument that it makes sex workers less depending on brothels owners is not a good one. After all, we still can't work without brothel owners, so we still rely on them. Also the argument that we won't have to give away any privacy information isn't a very strong argument. After all, they already have this information from all of our previous intakes. And why should we give this private information to people from a government we don't trust, while right now it's in the hands of brothel owners we do trust and already have this information. So what's the benefit for us? And besides, why would I need to prove I'm a self employer business owner, this is already proven by the fact that I'm already registered at the KvK, which by the way also do some sort of intake interviews these days, as I've found out yesterday.

Dutch public prosecutor lies about trafficking statistics

Today there was a radio show about prostitution in the Dutch National Radio. One of the key people in this conversation was Warner ten Kate, the public prosecutor human trafficking in Holland. Interesting thing about Ten Kate is the fact that he spoke during the TV show of Jojanneke, and claimed there was a research that showed that 70% of the prostitutes were forced in Holland.

I've already given it a lot of attention with previous posts. And this eventually resulted in a public debate about these statistics. Laurens Buijs from the University of Amsterdam wrote an article about this whole discussion in the newspaper NRC. In a response to that article Warner ten Kate himself wrote an article one week later in the NRC, shoving his own words of 70% in the shoes of Jojanneke, claiming it were her 'statements'. Apparently Warner ten Kate didn't feel too confident about his own statistics, and decided to blame the whole thing on Jojanneke.

An interesting thing, since it were clearly the words of Warner ten Kate himself, and not those of Jojanneke. Jojanneke simply used his claim a lot in the media after she did the interview with him, because it supported her own conclusions. But Warner ten Kate already claimed a similar statistic in another interview for a research by the University of Groningen. The research was being done to find out if criminalizing clients of a forced prostitutes would work. Warner claimed in an interview included in this report that 70% of the prostitutes in Holland would be forced. He claimed this was based on the Sneep case and the Koolvis case (page 102).

Today in the radio interview however he dropped the Koolvis as source, and now claimed only the Sneep case was the source (25:25). Not so weird to drop the Koolvis case as a source. After all, the Koolvis case was a case about prostitutes being forced in other countries, not in Holland. Holland nearly functioned as a gateway to Europe for the traffickers, but the women never worked here. So it would also be kind of amazing if this case could tell us anything about how many women are forced in Holland, if this case wasn't even about that.

But this time during the interview on the Radio Warner ten Kate was specifically asked about the 70% and where it comes from, and if he would still repeat it today. He claimed the 70% comes from a research done by the Erasmus University during the Sneep case. Funny thing is however. The Erasmus University never did any such research. None whatsoever! In fact, the Sneep case report itself (now dubbed Schone Schijn) doesn't even mention the Erasmus University in any of it's 141 pages. Even more interesting, the Sneep case also doesn't say 70% is forced, but claims it's 50 to 85% (page 76), and 8 pages later all of the sudden changes that to 50 to 90% without any reason.

How someone that lies this clearly can still be in function as a public prosecutor, is a miracle to me. A public prosecutor should be without any blame, someone you can trust, not someone of whom you can factually proof he's lying on several occasions. How come this man can still be in his current function, if it is factually proven he's a liar? How the hell is this possible? How come this man's function is not a point of discussion.

But more interestingly perhaps is Warner his own claim to 'stop talking about numbers'. That's really kind of funny. This whole debate started because he as a public prosecutor and the police keep mentioning numbers which are pure bullshit. But when people point this out, all of the sudden they say the discussion shouldn't be about the numbers? Then why the fuck did you mention them? We didn't mention any numbers, we just try to show people you are lying about the numbers, and we try to do this with actual research which constantly proves them wrong. But than all of the sudden they chicken out and we can't talk about numbers anymore? Why? Because those numbers aren't in your favor? Because those numbers would prove you are a liar?

But most of all what I don't understand, is why Warner is making up his own statistics, while there are perfectly usable (yet unreliable) statistics out there to make the same claims? Why didn't he just pick the 50 to 90% from the Sneep report? Why does he think he can get away with making up his own numbers? And why make up your own numbers, which are easier to prove wrong, than to debate about existing number and prove those existing numbers aren't correct. Is it because he's scared he'll be proven wrong by people with knowledge? Does he think that if he makes up a number that doesn't exist, nobody will find out because nobody can find the source?

We never wanted a debate about numbers. It was people like Warner ten Kate, Gert-Jan Segers, Renate van der Zee, Jojanneke van den Berge and sorts that started this whole debate years ago. First with the 50 to 90%, until apparently it lost it's reliability because it got proven to be unreliable as hell. And now this magical 70% which is made up by Warner ten Kate, and shows up in no research at all. Did you really think we wouldn't find out Warner, if you just made up your own numbers? Did you really think we would be this dumb?

I don't want to have a debate about numbers. We're talking about people, and those people aren't numbers, and shouldn't be treated as such. It's really a shame the anti-prostitution lobby constantly has to resort to incorrect statistics as arguments for their lies. Victims of trafficking aren't helped by these nonsense discussions about statistics. But by constantly bringing them up, you force us to debunk those numbers, starting a whole discussion about numbers while it should about the victims.

Why oh why did you have to lie Warner? I simply don't get it! You just should have used existing numbers, not make them up and think we wouldn't find out. But what I really don't understand, is how this person can still be a public prosecutor, if his lies are so clear as daylight, and his position regarding sex work is so obviously opposing it. Your lies are busted mr. Ten Kate. My question is how long are you going to be able to keep that job now that your lies are exposed?

Dutch version