As Jo Bardoel pointed out, journalism has become highly professionalised over the past decades, with an increase in academic profiles and well-developed curricula both at the bachelor’s and master’s level. According to Bardoel, journalism was never as good as it is today. Investigative journalism has also become more powerful in recent years.
This positive outlook was tempered somewhat by Evert de Vos, the chairman of the Dutch Association of Investigative Journalists, who did recognise that professionalism and investigative journalism had improved, but added that it very much depended on what news medium one was looking at. The cutbacks in regional print media had closed the door to investigative journalism. Moreover, de Vos indicated that a lot of smaller investigative platforms were depending on subsidies, which was not a sustainable business model, especially in view of the decision to allocate the 2021 “special research projects” funding to the special Covid-19 fund intended to help door-to-door newspapers and local public broadcasters (see also the “Covid-19” section).
The journalists interviewed indicated that, in practice, self-reflection was limited to an ad hoc and fleeting critical evaluation during editorial meetings. The open debate culture (see Indicator F4 – Internal rules for practice of newsroom democracy) often resulted in lively discussions on how news was selected and framed. Such discussions were more difficult to achieve when everyone was working from home, as had been the case during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Another facet was the open debate culture with the audience (see Indicator E8 – Level of self-regulation). For instance, the editor-in-chief of Twentsche Courant Tubantia often responded to audience comments based on disagreements on how a news article ought to be written or on the timing of a news story. The most effective form of self-reflection was also found in news media with an ombudsperson, such as NPO, De Limburger, NRC Handelsblad, and de Volkskrant. These media outlets benefitted from the buffer effect created by the presence of intermediaries between the editorial staff and the audience (see also Indicators E8 – Level of self-regulation, & E9 – Participation).
