‘Independent journalist’ employed by the local authority

Are we still close enough?

It had been discussed for more than a year, but he finally started this autumn: the independent council journalist of the Municipality of Hof van Twente. Why is this so unusual? Because this journalist will be paid by the local council. Yet it has also got us thinking: are we, as a regional brand, still living up to our promise to readers of always being by your side?

brief history. In July 2023, the Hof van Twente Municipal Council asked for its own “independent political journalist”, partly because “regional newspapers hardly ever report on council meetings”. It caused a commotion, also within our editorial team. How independent is a reporter who is paid by the local council?

After much deliberation by the Municipal Executive, they decided on a contrived construction to meet the wishes of the Municipal Council. The council journalist will not be on the payroll of the local council, but on that of the local newspaper Hofweekblad. And that paper will in turn receive an additional amount from the local council. Objectivity, neutrality and independence guaranteed, right?

Yet not only do we have justified doubts about this form of ‘journalism’, we should also look in the mirror. Because they are right at Hof van Twente. Although we follow committee and council meetings, we no longer always report on these. This sometimes raises questions from readers. Why weren’t you there? Often followed by the accusation that we are neglecting our role as watchdog of local democracy.

This is often a topic of discussion in the editorial team. When should we write about local politics? And how should we do that? Our point of departure: we stay as close as possible to our readers and the local population. We focus on them, not on the politicians. We do this because we are convinced that people are not interested in yet another report about political bickering between councillor X and Y.

Independent

We are not primarily concerned about what the politician thinks, but about what the politicians decide. How will these decisions help or affect the people in Twente and the Achterhoek? What other solutions could possibly help? And what problems do people themselves experience that local politics could help with? To answer these questions, we will of course continue to turn to the municipal executives and councillors.

We are not primarily concerned about what the politician thinks, but about what the politicians decide

The council journalist of Hof van Twente has already published his first reports. If these reports help the local population become better informed about what is happening locally, then that is to be applauded. All initiatives to help inform people as much as possible about their own town, village or neighbourhood, and thus keeping them involved in society, deserve appreciation. We do not get in each other’s way in that regard – quite the contrary, in fact. But our reporters in Hof van Twente make their own choices and their own stories. Independent. Critical. But always by your side.

Daan Bonenkamp

Editor-in-chief of Tubantia

Exhibition of paintings made by Tubantia readers

Readers take up painting

Tubantia Museum. That is what it felt like when we opened the ‘New Masters of the Twente Landscape’ exhibition on a normal Tuesday evening. There were 300 people present. And 40 paintings on the walls, made by our own readers.

When Rijksmuseum Twenthe announced an exhibition of old masters such as Meindert Hobbema and Jacob van Ruisdael, who once painted Twente, we wondered how people see Twente in the year 2024. This is culturally and journalistically interesting. We asked our readers what they thought.

And a great number of them took up their brushes to answer this question. 269 (!) works of art were submitted. Of course, there were many paintings of Twente’s beautiful nature, the country estates and farms, but there were also socially critical artworks: a Twente full of airplanes or a canal in Twente flowing through a landscape of grey factories.

The exhibition was extremely well attended. Thousands of people came to have a look. All this was proof of how great the bond is between the people of Twente and their region. And with our newspaper. We see it as one of our tasks to keep this involvement alive and to strengthen it. With readers as painters, for example. Call it higher-level reader interaction.

Reaching more people through more simple articles

AI as a bridge to the semi-literate

How can AI help us give people with poor reading skills access to our stories? That was a question posed by the editorial team in Enschede this year. A healthy journalistic attitude: exploring opportunities with an open mind, but at the same time being critically inquisitive.

They had a series of stories in the pipeline about low literacy. This is a major problem in Enschede; it is in the Top 3 of cities with low literacy rates in the Netherlands. The editorial team asked ChatGPT to make a simple version of each article so that the people we are writing about could also understand the articles. Constructive journalism, but with a twist.

We then checked these simple versions ourselves (at language level B1). Subsequently, we placed them online for free with a clear ‘easy read’ caption. This of course included an explanation that AI had been used. Did we reach our target group? We’re not sure. But two figures from the data are hopeful. The reading time was long for the relatively short articles. And the read-to-end rate for the simple versions was higher than for the ‘standard’ premium version. The latter is certainly food for thought: could we reach even more people if we also wrote more simply ourselves?