Manifesto for a quality newspaper

Nederlands Dagblad. Christian Netherlands' quality newspaper.

In autumn 2018, we were approached by Nederlands Dagblad. ND is a Christian newspaper, which can be situated in between (the more liberal) Trouw and (the more orthodox) Reformatorisch Dagblad in terms of ‘colour’. The majority of readers vote Christen Unie. The first assignment we received from Nederlands Dagblad was: describe our identity. To do so, we spoke not only to the editor and publisher, but also to different groups of readers, from old to young, from loyal subscribers to people who occasionally bought the paper separately, and from strict Reformed to liberal Catholics.

We found two essential characteristics: a strong drive at the newspaper to do quality independent journalism and, at the same time, a certain trepidation among many existing and potential readers to express themselves as Christians in secularised society.

We combined those two elements in an internal manifesto that ended with the line ‘The quality newspaper of Christian Holland. We then devised and produced a TV commercial to get the story out there as well and reach a large group of potential readers.