Darwin’s law of natural selection also applies to newspapers: the faster you’re able to adapt to changing conditions, the greater your chance of survival. But a newspaper shouldn’t blindly chase after all the latest fads. An editorial board needs to have a heart, as well as an existential purpose.

Keep your head cool and your heart warm, that’s the motto that informs everything we do. Behind that lies an ambition to contribute to a healthy, harmonious society. If there’s one constant in our paper’s history, it’s that we have always tried to strengthen democracy, by ensuring that the public debate centres around the issues that really matter, informed by reliable data and strong arguments. We also make sure that everyone feels heard, helping to prevent social rifts.

In the paper’s early years, this was mainly done by presenting our readers with whatever opinions were considered to be ‘correct’ at the time. In recent decades, we’ve mostly tried to offer the best possible information so that they can make up their own minds.

When the first daily edition of de Volkskrant rolled off the presses, our fledgling democracy – universal suffrage had been introduced in 1919 – was fragile. The paper’s founders were particularly concerned that the Catholic workers would be swayed by communism. Later, the main threat became fascism.

Now democracy is under pressure once again. In the US, in Eastern Europe, but also here in the Netherlands. It’s not for nothing that we’re seeing an unusual interest in the interwar period: once again there’s fear that extremists will seize power. In the face of these threats, de Volkskrant’s mission to protect democracy is no less important than it was in 1921. And it will remain important for centuries to come.