Hildebrand Bijleveld

Bijleveld was born in Harlingen in 1965. He began his career as a journalist with Weekblad Schuttevaer, the Friesch Dagblad and the Evangelische Omroep (EO).

In 1995 and 1996 he was presenter of the program EenVandaag and then also hosted the EO current affairs column Tijdsein.^[1][2] He then worked as a teacher of journalism at the Evangelical School of Journalism. Afterwards, Bijleveld worked as a reporter for the Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau.

In 2000, he went to Sudan and founded several media projects there, including the English-language newspaper The Juba Post, founded in 2005. Bijleveld was general manager and editor-in-chief of this newspaper until 2008.

In 2007, he was arrested after being charged by former employees of this newspaper who were under investigation for fraud.^[3] He has been director and editor-in-chief of several independent radio stations since 2009: Radio Dabanga and Radio Tamazuj.^[4] In addition, Bijleveld is international program director for journalistic development for the Dutch non-governmental organization Free Press Unlimited.^[5]

Bijleveld became editor-in-chief of the Friesch Dagblad in October 2017, succeeding temporary editor-in-chief Anne Westerduin. However, he stepped down there again after three months, after it became apparent that he wanted to take a very different course from the editorial board in terms of content.^[6] In February 2018, he became a journalist at the Leeuwarder Courant.