ABSTRACT
This chapter maps the journalistic practices of foreign correspondents based in The Netherlands. How interesting can one of the smallest countries in Europe be in light of international news coverage? Interesting enough for international correspondents to make it their residence. It isn’t terribly obvious that this small country was once a world power. In the 17th cen tury, the then Dutch Republic was a large colonial empire (controlling Indonesia, Suriname, and The Netherlands Antilles), a thriving trading nation famous for its religious and diversity tolerance and for its high degree of freedom of the press. Free spirits from all over Europe were looking to reside in this country. In the 19th century, The Netherlands, by then a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, developed a unique social-political system where parallel ideological currents coexisted. This rather unique constellation was called ‘pillarization,’ a form of ‘organised pluralism’ (Hallin & Mancini, 2004, p. 53). From the beginning of the 20th century, this constituted the basis of the Dutch (mass) media system. In the context of Hallin and Mancini’s media systems theory, the Dutch media system is in compliance with the parameters of the democratic-corporatist model. It is characterized by external pluralism in the national press, a strong party press, and a high level of professionalization, among other features. The Dutch media landscape has ‘depillarized’ rapidly since the 1970s due to secularization, individualization, and commercialization.
