Bram Vermeulen

(1974) was elected journalist of the year in 2008. Vermeulen is a correspondent in Istanbul for NRC Handelsblad, NOS News, VRT and Radio Nederland Wereldomroep. From 2002-2009 he was correspondent in southern Africa. About that time he wrote Help, ik ben blank geworden (Help, I've become white, 2009). In 2007 he was recipient of the Dick Scherpenzeel Award for his reports from Mugabe's bankrupt Zimbabwe. Early 2011 VPRO broadcast his In Turkey, a seven part documentary on the country where he now lives. At the end of 2011 it earned him the Erasmus Euro Media Award. In the programme Bram Vermeulen treks across Turkey in search of the fast changes taking place everywhere. He travels along the borders of a country with a regained self-confidence, from the Mediterranean to the snow-capped mountains of the far east, from the closed borders with Armenia to the open southern borders with neighbouring Arab states with which the Turks have strengthened lost ties.