Our Mission

Promoting a decisive democracy and pluralistic independent media.

Our Mission
We promote media that contribute to a well-functioning democracy, because we are convinced that the media are the lifeblood of our democracy. We firmly stand up for the interests of citizens in our free, democratic society and their right to well-functioning media. We are taking the lead to ensure that the Netherlands can continue to rely on a media landscape that serves democracy in the future. To that end, we are working toward two interrelated goals: a strong liberal democratic state governed by the rule of law, and a pluralistic and independent media sector.

What is at stake

Digitisation has fundamentally changed our information landscape: algorithms are designed to capture our attention, advertising revenue flows to tech giants, and the line between fact and fiction is blurring. Now that generative AI is making its debut, every citizen may be trapped in a reality tailored to them but monitored by no one. Meanwhile, undemocratic parties are exploiting the new media reality more effectively than many democrats—and strategically using misinformation to sow division and undermine trust.

What kind of infrastructure shapes our public sphere: algorithms from tech giants over which no one has control, or a media landscape grounded in public values? It is the most important issue of our time.  

Stichting Democratie en Media is in a unique position to play a role in this regard. Rooted in the history of the underground newspaper *Het Parool*, financially independent, and with sufficient clout to stand firm where others must bow.  

Specifically, SDM focuses on three levels:

  1. Infrastructure: ensuring the rules of the game for media align with today’s digital reality.
  2. Sector: to ensure that the media sector is resilient and can reinvent itself. Only by working together can we face the major challenges that lie ahead.
  3. Purpose: to ensure that innovative ideas shape public discourse on the future of democracy.

The objectives that guide us

SDM was born out of resistance. In 1944, the people behind the illegal resistance newspaper Het Parool founded the foundation during the occupation. Their conviction: access to independent, pluralistic, and reliable information is vital for democracy. This is still described in our statutes and forms the basis of everything we do:

1a. To influence public opinion in the Netherlands and, as far as desirable and possible, also abroad, in the spirit of the ideas advocated in the illegal newspaper Het Parool, which appeared in the Netherlands during the German occupation and strove for a radical renewal of democracy, in a political as well as in a social and economic sense. This includes, on the one hand, a powerful fight against all totalitarian phenomena in social and political life, both nationally and internationally. On the other hand, it involves striving for a decisive democracy that can deploy the forces necessary in every field for maintaining, in particular, personal freedom in a democratic state system and, in general, the promotion of Western civilisation as embodied in the democratic constitutional state. It further includes stimulating a continuous readiness for change and renewal of democracy wherever the need arises; and

1b. the promotion of pluralistic opinion-forming media in a democratic state system.

2. To support the surviving relatives of those who were deprived of their lives as a result of the German occupation due to their cooperation with the illegal newspaper Het Parool, as well as to provide support to contributors to the illegal newspaper Het Parool or to their relatives who have been affected in any way due to their cooperation, all at the discretion of the foundation’s board.