Signature Journalism in the Netherlands
When the hospital walls began to talk
Medical residents in the pathology department at Maastricht UMC+ didn’t feel safe in their workplace. In 2022, they complained for the first time to a confidential counsellor about inappropriate behaviour by head of department Axel zur Hausen. These young doctors – whose future careers depended on him – were being bullied, humiliated, threatened and played off against each other amid a culture of fear. The board chose to side with zur Hausen and ignored and downplayed the signals.
Then, in mid-2024, the internal training committee alerted the Registration Committee of Medical Specialists. The committee put all training at Maastricht under “intensive supervision” and launched its own investigation. This resulted in the withdrawal of training accreditation, a rare move and a huge blow to the hospital.
We sought out some of those involved who were willing to tell De Limburger about their experiences. Shortly afterwards, the FNV union urged an investigation into the culture at the hospital. The results, published shortly before Christmas, were disconcerting. They were especially challenging for the board of directors, about whom employees said, among other things, that it “is invisible, does not appear sincere and covers things up”. CFO Gabriël Zwart drew his conclusions and stepped down.
© De Limburger - Illustration of abuse of power in the pathology department at Maastricht UMC+
Throwing a light on the dark side of amateur football
Among amateur football clubs, a parent managing and training the team their own child plays for tends to be the rule rather than the exception. But what if the father and coach is also the club’s financier, he has powerful friends and his fanaticism comes out as aggression? This is the story of desperate parents who saw their children become ridden with anxiety, who knew exactly what was happening, and yet were turned away by every authority they approached.
It started with a complaint from a parent who contacted our sports desk. Investigative journalist Henk Runhaar picked it up and spent months investigating. His work resulted in a compelling longread that was recognisable to any football parent and exposed the dark side of local sport.
The story had a huge impact on the football pitches around Amsterdam. And ultimately on the club itself: in December, the board communicated its willingness to step down once successors were found. This is a great example of signature journalism, because the context is so recognisable, it’s relevant to the local reader, and it was based on solid, in-depth investigative journalism.
© Marcel Molle — Youth players amateur football clubs
De Ware Jacob: pursued and caught by the truth
Jan Westera carried out 30 years of research into the Netherlands’ biggest but least known conman, Rob Jacob. With Colin Mooijman, he turned it into the compelling nine-part podcast De Ware Jacob, or The Real Jacob.
Jacob faked a millionaire’s lifestyle, pretending to be a baron, heir or high-ranking soldier. He conned friends, family, neighbours, businessmen, banks, accountants and governments around the world. It earned him millions. In 2005, he was sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of €1 million over a fraud scandal, but he fled Europe just before his conviction. Interpol was unable to find him and his sentence expired in 2021.
Westera found him in Bali. Jacob went on the run again, but Westera tracked down his new secret address in Amsterdam while making the podcast. The Real Jacob put an end to the conman’s business model and blocked his attempt to swindle Amsterdam’s Stadsherstel foundation.
The podcast quickly racked up more than 1.5 million listens. It spent weeks as the number 1 trending podcast on Spotify, is rated 4.9 out of 5 and gets a daily stream of reactions. Fans praise the depth of the investigation, Westera’s perseverance and the variety of sources: from victims at home and abroad to experts in lying, delusions of grandeur and anti-social personality disorders.
© DVHN Matthijs Mol - Podcast De Ware Jacob
Russia is closer than you might think
Using drones, sabotage and espionage, Russia is trying to sow confusion across Europe. Meanwhile, the Dutch government is urging citizens through campaigns in the press and social media to be prepared and have an emergency kit ready in their home. Fearmongering? For many Dutch people, the war is something far away. The Russians aren’t at our borders, after all.
Reporters Gerda Frankhuis and Silvan Schoonhoven revealed on 26 September 2025 that the long arm of Moscow has, in fact, reached the Netherlands. Two Dutch teenagers were arrested for espionage, and the Telegraaf journalists spoke to the father of one of them. He described how the police had stormed their neat family home during the arrest, suspecting his son of carrying out paid jobs for the pro-Russian hackers group NoName057(16). And not only while sitting at the computer where he usually gamed: his first task was to walk past embassies and Europol with a Wi-Fi sniffer. The depth of his connections will become clear during the trial in 2026.
De Telegraaf continues to publish news between the pillars of crime and personal stories. This story is so distinctive that it was not only the hot topic in the Netherlands, it was also picked up worldwide. At the heart of this impact is the journalists’ robust networks and their thorough investment in contact with the teenagers’ parents. That’s something we can’t leave to AI.
© Fred Libochant - Europol
What really went on behind the scenes at the Fries Museum
The shocking departure of director Kris Callens from the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden turned out to be anything but the orderly farewell the board portrayed to the public. According to an article published on 14 March 2025, Callens had been committing acts of transgressive behaviour for years.
Reporters Zander Lamme and Myrddin Hilbrands spoke to many people inside and outside the museum to gain detailed insight into Callens’ conduct. The revelations also threw a light on the way the supervisory board of the most important museum in Friesland had handled the issue. There was an outside investigation and the management offered its excuses for the way its actions had made the victims feel they weren’t being listened to.
Thanks to the reporters’ tenacity, the story took on deeper connotations than “just another MeToo issue”. It wasn’t just a case of a director who crossed the line in his conduct towards female employees. It also became clear that Callens was shielded at the cost of his victims. The impact was huge.
Our newsroom came in for criticism over the story. “Does this really need to be public?” “Hasn’t he already been punished?” But we remain committed to our approach. We investigated what others looked past. The reconstruction was an example of deep and careful investigative journalism that delivered socially relevant news. Signature journalism par excellence.
© Jacob van Essen - Fries Museum
Party leader interviews: new formats, familiar quality
NRC set itself apart this year through a series of interviews with the party leaders of all the parties in the elections. We published four of the 13 interviews not as stand-alone articles but simultaneously as longreads, podcasts, YouTube videos and social media clips. In doing so, we demonstrated how high-quality journalism can be translated to today’s platforms.
These interviews were a co-production by our political reporters, our audio editors and our brand new video team, established in 2025. They confronted the politicians with content and ideology, with the added challenge of making the result compelling to watch and listen to as well.
The interviews had enormous reach. They were viewed for a total of 24,000 hours, listened to for 83,000 hours and read for 26,000 hours. The social clips reached an average of 100,000 views, while several news programmes and talk shows picked up excerpts.
All of this showed NRC at its best. Experienced journalists excelled in new formats, without compromising on content or depth. In doing so, we reached both loyal readers and a new and younger audience: exactly where our future lies.
© NRC - Rob Jetten during the interview
Everyone deserves a safe place to celebrate Christmas
Last Christmas, journalist Ate Hoekstra spoke to journalists from El Salvador, Iraq and Egypt at a local asylum centre. They poignantly described the way celebrating Christmas and being a Christian had always been for them: unsafe, stressful, threatening. In Friesland, they felt safe for the first time.
Ate spent years in Cambodia as a correspondent and is now back in the Netherlands, where he wants to open the eyes and ears of the reader to people less fortunate than them. And not only those far away, but also people here, right under our noses. He introduces readers to care workers, informal carers, homeless people, helpline volunteers and refugees.
The Friesch Dagblad publishes a compact selection of news from home and abroad. Around that, we provide a context that helps readers relate to that news. To help them assess what’s important and relevant. To emphasise that there is indeed a lot of good in society. And to make them realise they can use their time and talents to make a difference. Ate’s distinctive stories make a great contribution to this mission.
© Marco Keyze — Mariana from Egypt and Odila from El Salvador decorating the asylum centre for Christmas, as they enjoy a celebration free from fear
Real-time fact checking for a new generation
Politicians no longer need journalists to get their messages out. Clips from debates, talking points and videos go straight to socials and do their own work there.
Jeroen Kroeze of SPILNEWS is the first vlogging journalist in the Lower House, where he’s present each week to give visibility to the parliamentary process and highlight issues that matter to young people. During one debate in the House in August, Geert Wilders cited several figures on crime among various migrant groups. Kroeze heard those statements, immediately verified them with a phone call to the Central Bureau of Statistics, then made a video spelling out the inaccuracies.
The video has been widely viewed by a young audience: more than 231,000 views on Instagram and 221,000 on TikTok. Above all, retention is relatively high: many people watch the video all the way through. That doesn’t necessarily mean everyone agrees with the content, but it does show that people find it engaging.
This demonstrates what strong journalism is: checking, adding context and explaining how something should be read. It’s exactly the kind of journalism young people need right now – and especially on the platforms where misinformation can quickly take on a life of its own.
© SPILNEWS - Instagram feed