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, dat zich had ontwikkeld tot een succesvolle krant, werd ondergebracht in een nv, met de stichting als enige aandeelhouder.

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. Sinds maart 2019 gaat De Persgroep verder onder de naam DPG Media en is het de grootste uitgever van journalistieke media in Nederland.

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%.

Objectives

Promoting a vigorous democracy and diverse, opinion-leading media

SDM handelt altijd in de geest van de oprichters van verzetskrant Het Parool. De naam Stichting Democratie en Media, die Stichting Het Parool in 2003 koos, doet recht aan de doelstelling die destijds door de oprichters voor de stichting werd geformuleerd:

1.a.
De openbare mening in Nederland en voor zover wenselijk en mogelijk ook daarbuiten te beïnvloeden in de geest van de denkbeelden, welke zijn voorgestaan in het tijdens de Duitse bezetting in Nederland verschenen illegale blad Het Parool, dat streefde naar een radicale vernieuwing van de democratie, zowel in staatkundige als in sociale en economische zin. Dit sluit enerzijds in een krachtige bestrijding van alle totalitaire verschijnselen in het maatschappelijke en politieke leven, nationaal zowel als internationaal. Anderzijds houdt zulks in het ijveren voor een daadkrachtige democratie, die op elk terrein de krachten kan ontplooien, welke nodig zijn voor het handhaven in het bijzonder van de persoonlijke vrijheid in een democratisch staatsbestel en in het algemeen de bevordering van de beschaving van het westen zoals deze is belichaamd in de democratische rechtsstaat. Het sluit voorts in het stimuleren van een voortdurende bereidheid tot verandering en vernieuwing van de democratie, overal waar de noodzaak daartoe zich voordoet; 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.

Om haar rol als fonds daadkrachtiger te kunnen invullen, ging SDM in 2014 over van een bestuursmodel naar een raad-van-toezichtmodel met een directeur-bestuurder. Momenteel geeft SDM op verschillende manieren invulling aan de doelstelling, van het verlenen van grants tot het ontwikkelen van eigen initiatieven. Op de pagina What we do lees je hier meer over. Op de pagina over stakeholdership page, you can read how DMF gives substance to its media shareholdership based on its mission.

Support and commemoration

De tweede doelstelling in de statuten luidt:

2.
De nagelaten betrekkingen te steunen van hen, die op grond van hun medewerking aan het illegale blad Het Parool ten gevolge van de Duitse bezetting van het leven zijn beroofd, alsmede steun te verlenen aan medewerkers aan het illegale blad Het Parool of aan hun betrekkingen, die wegens medewerking op enigerlei wijze zijn getroffen, een en ander ter beoordeling van de directie van de stichting.

Dit betekent dat de stichting waar nodig maatschappelijke steun verleent aan nabestaanden van de omgekomen het Parool-medewerkers. De financiële lasten van deze steunverlening zijn overgenomen door de 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 .