Dutch news media is known to separate the newsroom from both owners and commercial departments’ influence, and all – including the editorial staff – value this distinction. Independent researcher Huub Evers also confirmed this.
Media house owners never intervene in editorial matters, indicated the interviewed editors-in-chief. This also applied to public service radio and television channels, whose politically oriented executive board refrains from making any editorial interference.
Likewise, there is an explicit segregation between newsrooms and sales departments. Obviously, editors-in-chief coordinate with the sales department, but everyone interviewed confirmed that there were no interferences. Advertisers may at times regret the publication of certain articles, but none of the interviewed journalists felt any pressure preventing them from being critical.
In 2009, Huub Wijfjes had indicated that with editors-in-chief being a part of the management board, there might have been an influence on their roles as gatekeepers of editorial independence. However, none of the journalists reported they had ever been in a position where they could not exercise such independence, nor did editors say anything to the contrary. Concentration in the Netherlands’ newspaper market has significantly increased in the last decade. Several interviewees indicated that working conditions and editorial independence varied from one news company to another. For example, DPG Media is seen as one of the most commercially influenced media companies. Evert de Vos called the situation with DPG Media in Belgium – one single, cross-media newsroom for both television and newspapers – a “nightmare vision for Dutch newspapers”.
