Prelude in time of war

The identity, motivation and goals of the Foundation for Democracy and Media are inextricably tied to the journalist Frans Goedhart (1904-1990). On 25 July 1940, he published the ‘Newsletter of Pieter ‘t Hoen’ in Amsterdam, the temporary predecessor of newspaper Het Parool. In fact, historical roots even go all the way back to the Patriotic period (1781-1778), when the principles of the Enlightenment, such as democratization and the emancipation of the citizens, first made themselves felt in the Netherlands. Goedhart in fact derived the name and probably also the inspiration for his newletter from ‘De Post van den Neder-Rhijn’, a weekly that was edited by the patriot journalist and man of letters Pieter ‘t Hoen (1744-1828) during the Patriotic period.

With his stencilled, illegal periodical and its independent reporting, Goedhart wanted to provide a counter-weight to the official ‘news service’, which was controlled by the occupier. Goedhart set himself against the fatalistic posture of the premier, Colijn, and called for illegal and underground acts of political resistance. In the summer of 1940, Goedhart came into contact with a number of like-minded individuals. They agreed to continue the Newsletters in an expanded form and on February 10th an expanded publication appeared under the name ‘Het Parool – Free, fearless’. As a result of the enormous interest in Het Parool in Amsterdam and vicinity, stencilling soon was, for technical and practical reasons, no longer possible. On 11 August 1941, Het Parool appeared as the first, printed illegal newspaper.

The subsequent years were characterized by a continuously growing readership – in the autumn of 1944 as many as 100,000 copies in all of the Netherlands – but also by a continuously increasing threat of extermination by the occupying forces. The pursuit by the Germans resulted in countless arrests of staff and editors. Many did not survive their imprisonment or were executed. Some, including Frans Goedhart, managed, with often daring escapes from imprisonment, to save their lives. In April 1944, the journalist Simon Carmiggelt took over as editor, succeeding Gerrit Jan van Heuven Goedhart, who was forced to flee to London. The Germans did not, however, succeed in dealing the coup de grace to the organization. Two days after liberation, on 7 May 1945, the hundredth issue of Het Parool appeared, the first legal issue in Amsterdam. Van Heuven Goedhart became, after the war, the first editor-in-chief of Het Parool. Frans Goedhart, who had evolved from communist to socialist and democrat, maintained his independent position. For 24 years he was a member of parliament for the Labour Party, but left the party in 1970 in protest against the influence of the New Left movement. The Democratic Socialists ’70 emerged from the Democratic Appèl, a counter-movement which he helped to establish. In 1974, he withdrew from active political involvement.

Foundation Het Parool

Already in 1943, a plan had emerged to continue Het Parool as a newspaper after the liberation. In accordance with this plan, the founders chose very consciously to establish the newspaper as a non-profit foundation. They wanted to prevent commercial considerations of the owner from interfering with the newspaper’s social role in the new, post-war Netherlands: independent and free gathering of news and publication. The behaviour of the owners of other newspapers during the war had, according to the founders, shown that the profit motive and independence are not easily compatible. Moreover, they believed that a desire for profit on the part of the owners could not be reconciled with the dozens of staff members who had risked their lives working for Het Parool during the war or had lost their lives. On 14 September 1944, the deeds of establishment of the Foundation Het Parool were signed. For reasons of security, its exact location was still kept secret.

After the war, the foundation, with Frans Goedhart as chair, acted as publisher of Het Parool and associated periodicals. The director of the publishing house was Wim van Norden, who was also secretary and treasurer of the foundation. Van Norden had become involved in the organization when he was a student, initially as a distributor of the Newsletter of Pieter ‘t Hoen. Later he became editor of its illegal successor, Het Parool.

In order to manage the publishing house more efficiently, it was incorporated in a limited liability company, the N.V. Het Parool, with the foundation as sole shareholder, thus maintaining the desired distance between founders and business.

After 1968, drastic changes came to the position of both the N.V. Het Parool and the foundation. After a merger with de Volkskrant, De Perscombinatie came into existence with Wim van Norden as its managing director until 1979. This was followed by the acquisition of Trouw. When in 1994 the book publisher Meulenhoff & Co was taken over, the company's name was changed to PCM Uitgevers N.V. In 1995 PCM took over the Nederlandse Dagblad Unie, publisher of NRC Handelsblad and Algemeen Dagblad.

During this entire episode Foundation Het Parool remained majority shareholder of PCM, although the extent of its interest varied. At the beginning of the present millennium – when the foundation had a 57% interest in PCM – PCM found itself in severe difficulties. Substantial investments in, among other things, new media combined with simultaneously plummeting profits made budget cuts unavoidable. These also threatened the position of Het ParoolWeekmedia B.V. within PCM.

Foundation for Democracy and Media

This precarious situation ended in 2003, when Het ParoolWeekmedia B.V. was privatized and subsequently taken over by the Belgian media concern de Persgroep. In order to avoid confusion and protect the identity of Het Parool within de Persgroep, Foundation Het Nieuwe Parool was established. Foundation Het Parool changed its name to Foundation for Democracy and Media.

In a 2004 transaction which was subsequently much criticized, the Foundation for Democracy and Media and the other shareholders sold a total of 52.5% of their shares in PCM to the British private equity firm Apax. The intention was to improve the financial strength of PCM, partly to enable it to make additional investments in new media. However, plans to take PCM to the stock market to bring in fresh capital never materialised. Other projects were shelved as well. Unfortunately, Apax' involvement mainly cost PCM a considerable amount of money. In 2007 Apax withdrew from PCM. In order to secure the survival of the company, severely weakened by the involvement of Apax, the Foundation for Democracy and Media took over Apax’s set of shares.
Now owning 90.3 % of the shares, the foundation had once more become majority shareholder.

However, in the course of 2008 PCM's financial position rapidly deteriorated. The structural problem of diminishing revenues from advertising was made even more acute by the credit crunch. As a consequence, PCM’s bankers severely limited its credit facilities, thus seriously endangering its very existence. Early in 2009, discussions began with the Belgian publishing concern de Persgroep, publisher of, among other things, the newspaper De Morgen and owner of the television network VTM; in 2003, de Persgroep had acquired ParoolWeekmedia. As a consequence of these negotiations, de Persgroep ownes 51 percent of PCM's shares since July of 2009. On 1 December 2009, the name PCM was changed to de Persgroep Nederland. The Foundation for Democracy and Media has retained 38.8 percent of the shares in de Persgroep Nederland.

The acquisition had one other consequence. The Netherlands Competition Authority (NMa) only approved the takeover of PCM on the condition that the NRC Mediagroep, publisher of NRC Handelsblad and nrc.nxt, would be sold. The NMa felt that de Persgroep, of which Het Parool had also been a part since 2003, would otherwise enjoy an excessively dominant position in the Amsterdam region. In the autumn of 2009, a controlled auction of the NRC Mediagroep began; on 21 December, the editorial board of NRC Media voted in favour of a takeover by the Egeria/Het Gesprek combination. Egeria is an independent Dutch investment institution; the television network Het Gesprek was specialized in news, social interest, culture and media. However, on August 20, 2010 it filed for bankruptcy, but this has not endangered NRC Media's continued existence.

Important dates

25 July 1940: The first Newsletter of Pieter ‘t Hoen (pen name of Frans Goedhart) appears illegally.

10 February 1941: The expanded version of the Newsletter appears for the first time under the title Het Parool – Free, fearless. The editorial board now consists of five men.

11 August 1941: Het Parool is no longer stencilled, but is printed, becoming the first printed illegal newspaper in the Netherlands. 

14 September 1944: The provisional act of establishment of Foundation Het Parool is signed, with the intention to publish Het Parool as a daily newspaper after the liberation.

25 September 1944: After the liberation of the southern part of The Netherlands, Het Parool appears as the first free formerly illegal newspaper in Maastricht.

1960: N.V. Het Parool is established, to run the business operations of the newspaper, for which a foundation is not suitable. Foundation Het Parool remains its single shareholder.

1968: A merger with the daily newspaper de Volkskrant results in the establishment of De Perscombinatie. 

1974: The daily newspaper Trouw is included in De Perscombinatie.

1994: De Perscombinatie purchases all shares of book publisher Meulenhoff & Co. The company changes its name in PCM Uitgevers N.V.

1995: Nederlandse Dagblad Unie, publisher of NRC Handelsblad and the Algemeen Dagblad, is taken over.

1 January 2003: Het Parool is privatized and is taken over by De Persgroep, based in Belgium.

2003: The establishment of Foundation Het Nieuwe Parool. Foundation Het Parool changes its name to the Foundation for Democracy and Media.

July 2009: PCM is taken over by De Persgroep. The Foundation for Democracy and Media still holds 38.8 percent of the shares in PCM.

1 December 2009: The name of PCM Uitgevers is changed to De Persgroep Nederland.

21 December 2009: The editorial board of NRC Media, publishers of NRC Handelsblad and nrc.nxt, vote to approve the sale by De Persgroep to the combination of the investment institution Egeria and the television network Het Gesprek.