Nina Jurna Latin American Reporter Mark Bessems Returns to the Netherlands

Nina Jurna became the new NOS correspondent for Latin America. As of March 1, 2022, he will return to the Netherlands after Mark Bessems. Jurna is certainly not new to the continent: he was in Paramaribo between 2000 and 2011, and since then he has been working in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

After studying journalism at the Windshield University of Applied Science, Nina Jurna began working for the Amsterdam TV channel AT5. He then went to Suriname and became a reporter for RTL News and various newspapers.

After moving to Rio de Janeiro, he became the Latin American correspondent for NRC Handelsblad in 2015. He continues to work in this position for the magazine as well. Since 2019, Jurna has been an alternative to Mark Bessems for NOS in Latin America. Since 2020 he has also included Suriname for the NOS, and he continues to do the latter.

Deeply rooted inequality

“This area is largely made up of young and yet shaky democracies, where deep inequality plays a key role,” says Jurna, who speaks both Portuguese and Spanish. “There are major current issues such as deforestation, climate change and – here – the refugee crisis.”

“After all these years this area has fascinated me. It is a continent with great diversity, it is a melting pot of cultures. There are so many stories here that I want to create on TV, radio and online.”

Nina Jurna, Head of the Foreign Office of NOS News, Esther Bootsma is an experienced and versatile journalist. “She has a great eye on human stories and has an extensive network on this vibrant continent full of political and economic contradictions. She is eager to go out and tell those stories. We are very happy to have found such a good successor to Mark Bessams.”