Joop Bouma, Netherlands, is an investigative reporter, editor and author. He most recently worked for the Dutch daily newspaper Trouw, where he covered environmental and criminal beats and also served as national editor. Bouma retired from his position at Trouw in July 2020.
Previously, Bouma was a crime reporter and national news editor at various daily newspapers in the eastern and northern parts of the Netherlands.
Bouma is the author of The Smokescreen: The Power of the Dutch Tobacco Industry, which examines influence-peddling in the government and media by cigarette companies, as well as behind-the-scenes deals surrounding the tobacco industry in the Netherlands, the largest cigarette exporter in the European Union. In the book, the culmination of years of reporting, Bouma reveals that a former Dutch prime minister and finance minister were regular visitors to a Philip Morris lobbying group in New York.
Despite denials by the former politicians, Trouw was able to secure, through the Dutch freedom of information act, corroborating evidence about the meetings. In 2020, he published a second book that showed how the industry manipulated their products.
Since 2001 Bouma investigated the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on doctors in the Netherlands. In 2006 he published a book about the way Big Pharma is marketing drugs in Holland. His book led to debates in Dutch parliament and to changes in the way medical guidelines were made. He was a speaker at numerous medical conferences and at medical education courses for doctors and pharmacologists in Holland.
He has been involved in reports on the charity industry and the marketing of alcohol to youths.
Bouma is also one of the founding fathers of the Dutch-Flemish association of investigative journalists (VVOJ).
