Compared with 2009, the independent foundation Stichting Mediadebatbureau, which aimed at stimulating reflections among citizens about media quality, reliability, and diversity, no longer exists. The BNR Nieuwsradio discussion programme Mediazaken [Media matters], in which media professionals reviewed issues concerning journalism and the media, was discontinued in April 2016. However, online-only initiatives such as FTM and De Correspondent have started their operations in the past decade. Their mission statements – “revealing the truth” and “acting as watchdog” – are crucial, including in relation to other media organisations. In general, experts, journalists, and audiences do trust the Dutch news media to play their roles as watchdogs. Trust in news is also relatively high in the Netherlands: 14 per cent of the population indicated that they did not trust the news, compared with 53 per cent stating they did (CvM, 2019a).
However, openness to external evaluation is low because independence is very highly valued. Moreover, the journalists interviewed were convinced that journalistic values were automatically embeddedin each individual journalist, resulting in no need for an external assessment of their professionalism.
An initiative to stimulate discussion of and research on the influence of new media and social-cultural developments can be found on the denieuwereporter.nl website, started in 2005. Its editor-in-chief is university lecturer Alexander Pleijter. The website is an independent blog about journalistic practice, with an open forum for debate and comments about developments in the media, a refreshing source of ideas for self-reflection among journalistic circles (De Nieuwe Reporter, 2020).
The MON (see Indicators E8 – Level of self-regulation and Indicator, & E9 – Participation) also works on deliberations over journalistic ethics and values. An ongoing debate in the Netherlands is about the need for an independent news ombudsperson. In 2019, MON chairman Jan van Groesen had stated that due to the absence of an independent ombudsperson, news media couldn’t properly fulfil their function as an information provider. It is worth noting, however, that the website’s publication rate is very low (in 2020, so far there is only one article; 2019 had one article, 2018 two articles, and 2017 three articles) and the most recent reaction to a piece dated back to 2016.
