History
From resistance newspaper to media shareholder and fund with a mission.
De Stichting Het Parool
Democracy and Media Foundation owes its existence to the founders of resistance newspaper Het Parool in the Netherlands. They made and distributed this illegal newspaper at the risk of their own lives during World War II. Please read the newspaper during the 1940-1945 war years here. They had already decided during the occupation to continue Het Parool as an independent daily newspaper after the liberation. To do this, they established a separate non-profit foundation.
After the war, the Foundation indeed became the owner and publisher of the newspaper of the same name and the founders remained actively involved. Journalist Frans Goedhart, who had started the resistance newspaper during the war, became chairman of the Foundation. Wim van Norden, an ally of the first hour, became director of publishing as well as treasurer and secretary of the Foundation. In the 1950s, it was decided to separate their positions more clearly. Het Parool, which had developed into a successful daily newspaper in the Netherlands, was incorporated into a public limited company with the Foundation as the sole shareholder. Het Parool, which had developed into a successful newspaper, was turned into a limited liability company, with the foundation as its sole shareholder.
In 1968, Het Parool merged with Dutch daily newspaper De Volkskrant. This gave birth to De Perscombinatie, of which Wim van Norden remained director until 1979. And in 1974, De Perscombinatie took over former resistance newspaper Trouw. Although the newspapers operated completely independently of each other editorially, they cooperated in the printing and distributing of their newspapers. When De Perscombinatie took over book publisher Meulenhoff & Co in 1994, the name changed to PCM Uitgevers N.V. One year later, in 1995, PCM made a successful takeover bid for Nederlandse Dagblad Unie, which had been put up for sale by its owner Reed Elsevier. Following the takeover, NRC Handelsblad and Algemeen Dagblad became part of PCM. Het Parool Foundation had grown from being the owner of a resistance newspaper into becoming the major shareholder in the largest publisher of quality daily newspapers in the Netherlands.
Democracy and Media Foundation
In early 2000, PCM faced structural financial problems that threatened its survival. This is why the publisher decided to sell off the operations of loss-making newspaper Het Parool. It was a controversial decision that caused tensions, also within Het Parool Foundation. In January 2003, The Parool became independent. Belgian media house De Persgroep became a shareholder of Het Parool B.V., together with the specially created Het Nieuwe Parool Foundation; Het Parool Foundation remained a shareholder of PCM. To keep a clear distinction between Het Parool Foundation and the privatised daily newspaper Het Parool published by De Persgroep, Het Parool Foundation changed its name to Democracy and Media Foundation (DMF).
A year later, in 2004, DMF and other shareholders sold a total of 52.5 percent of their shares in PCM to British investment company Apax. The plan was to list PCM on the stock exchange to raise new capital for the necessary investments. But that plan never went ahead, as Apax withdrew from PCM in March 2007. DMF then repurchased 90.3% of the shares. In 2008, PCM initiated new talks with De Persgroep about collaboration. The outcome of these talks was that De Persgroep acquired a majority stake in PCM as of July 2009. DMF retained a minority stake, which was reduced to 14.27% over the years. DMF also has a so-called priority share, which gives it control over the independence and continuity of newspapers Trouw and De Volkskrant. As of March 2019, De Persgroep continued under the name DPG Media and is the largest publisher of journalistic media in the Netherlands. Trouw and de Volkskrant. Since March 2019, De Persgroep continues under the name DPG Media and is the largest publisher of journalistic media in the Netherlands.
In 2014, DMF invested in the establishment of De Correspondent, acquiring a 10% stake in this news website. DMF also has a priority share in De Correspondent, which gives it special control of and allows it to monitor the principles behind the platform. In 2014, NRC Media also came up for sale. Belgian publishers Mediahuis expressed interest, provided that Dutch partners could also be involved in the acquisition. DMF and Vereniging Veronica joined with a minority share. Then, in 2017 and 2018, Mediahuis bought out DMF for 100%.
Our founders
In 1989, people involved in the illegal Parool looked back on the war years in an interview series.
Wim van Norden
“We traveled around the country like crazy, talking, trying to create new distribution points,” says Wim van Norden, who as an early twenty-something became involved with the resistance newspaper, of which he became director after the war.
Frans Goedhart
'I said to him: we have to escape yo. Otherwise it looks bad for us,'" Parool founder Frans Goedhart tells of the captivity that earned him a scoop earned him a scoop . As one of the first journalists, he reported on the systematic mass murders in concentration camps.
Nel Blog
'People couldn't listen to the radio anymore. That they still got the news about what was happening was very important. Because the newspapers of those days, there was nothing anymore,' said Nel Blog Engelhard, who distributed newspapers and bulletins by bicycle.
Objectives
Promoting a vigorous democracy and diverse, opinion-leading media
SDM always acts in the spirit of the founders of resistance newspaper Het Parool. The name Democracy and Media Foundation, which The Parool Foundation chose in 2003, does justice to the objective set for the foundation by its founders at the time:
1.a.
To influence public opinion in the Netherlands and, as far as desirable and possible, abroad in the spirit of the ideas advocated in the illegal magazine published in the Netherlands during the German occupation Het Parool, which strove for a radical renewal of democracy, both in the state and in the social and economic sense. On the one hand, this includes vigorously combating all totalitarian phenomena in social and political life, both nationally and internationally. On the other hand, it implies working for a vigorous democracy that can develop in every field the forces necessary for the maintenance, in particular, of personal freedom in a democratic state and, in general, the promotion of Western civilization as embodied in the democratic rule of law. It further concludes by encouraging a constant readiness for change and renewal of democracy wherever the need arises; and
b.
to promote diverse, opinion-leading media in a democratic constitutional system.
In practice, DMF achieves the first objective through its media ownership and the provision of financial support to institutions, individuals or organisations in the Netherlands and abroad whose work or projects contribute to the objective. Het Parool Foundation already supported media in the form of a fund for the advancement of democracy. DMF began to do so increasingly and set up a grants committee for this purpose.
To more decisively fulfill its role as a fund, SDM transitioned in 2014 from a governance model to a board-of-supervisors model with a director-director. Currently, SDM fulfills its objective in a variety of ways, from grant-making to developing its own initiatives. On the page What we do you can read more about this. On the page about stakeholdership you can read how DMF gives substance to its media shareholdership based on its mission.
Support and commemoration
The second objective in the charter is as follows:
2.
Support the surviving relations of those who, by virtue of their cooperation with the illegal magazine Het Parool were deprived of life as a result of the German occupation, as well as providing support to contributors to the illegal magazine Het Parool or to their relations, affected in any way because of cooperation, all at the discretion of the foundation's management.
This means that where necessary, the foundation provides social support to relatives of the fallen het Paroolemployees. The financial burden of this support was taken over by the 1940-1945 Foundation , which was co-founded by the Parool Group. An employee of Democracy and Media Foundation maintains contacts with the relatives of members of the Parool resistance who were killed. Every year since 1946, a commemorative reunion is held on February 5th at the General Cemetery Cemetery in Zandvoort and the Honorary Cemetery in Bloemendaal in memory of those executed in the first Parool trial. You can read more about the annual commemoration here .
Stay up to date
Sign up for our newsletter with updates on our activities, support and grantees.