Not directly, although that was the original intention. Culture Press was founded in 2009 when the Associated Press Service, a press agency for all - then independent - regional newspapers, disbanded the central arts editorial department. According to that GPD, arts journalism was too expensive (and it was, art journalism is relatively expensive). At the same time, then editor-in-chief of the NRC, Birgit Donker, sacked 70 freelancers from the arts editorial board and the Financial Dagblad discontinued theatre and music coverage. The Cultural Press Bureau wanted to jump into that gap, and research by the Stimuleringsfonds voor de Pers (now Stimuleringsfonds voor de Journalistiek) also showed that there was room for it. We then set to work with a small team, including Ingrid van Frankenhuizen (NRC), Ruud Buurman(GPD), Jacob Haagsma(NRC), Wijbrand Schaap (GPD) and Leo Bankersen (GPD). Eventually, a start-up grant was obtained from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science to work for two years on an own revenue model. in 2010, the entire newspaper market then collapsed and all cooperation talks came to nothing. By then, we already had a well-run website and decided to stop relying on the slow - offline - cooperation with dailies and broadcasters and start communicating with the public ourselves. We were the first, and soon the biggest. Since the website was already called culturalpressbureau.nl, we kept the name, but go through life as a cultural journalism site with its own mission and sound. Of the original team, only Leo Bankersen and Wijbrand Schaap remain.
The logo represents a dodo. That strange bird came to mind when we were looking for a visual mark for Twitter. We wanted, in late 2008, to have our own bird, and we thought the dodo was a funny geeky thing. We quote Wikipedia: "the dodo had no natural enemies in its habitat and as a result gradually lost its ability to fly. The enemy image changed when humans in the form of Dutch settlers arrived. It was not the people themselves but mainly the animals they brought with them that had a disastrous effect on the dodo. In particular rats and pigs wreaked havoc among the dodos, especially their eggs and young."
When we started on Twitter, populism was coming on strong and we felt a kinship between arts journalists and dodos. Moreover, because we thought that a 'cultural news agency' as a name was too generic for the Chamber of Commerce, when we registered we just called the whole agency 'The Dodo'. The logo subsequently cost a pretty penny, but it has proved timeless.
In 2010 and 2011, Culture Press received a total of €200,000 in funding. That was intended as a start-up grant, aimed at developing an earnings model ourselves. We were able to develop that revenue model at the time. Realising that average readers would not be so quick to pay for a cultural news site, we focused on the importance that arts providers attach to good cultural reporting. As we also did not want to be paid directly by producers and creators, we found a good middle ground in cooperation with festivals. They themselves are a kind of intermediary, and need independent journalistic interpretation. Eventually we had ten festivals with which we worked intensively, and that was enough to fund the remaining journalistic activities. And then the cuts came and all the festivals lost their subsidies and we were left empty-handed. Our subsidy also stopped, partly because other specialist media were more entitled to the scarce resources at the funds and a culture-wide press agency could not be placed in that compartmentalised world. Evil tongues also claim that editors-in-chief threatened assassination attempts if we too received funding. Then we went ahead on our own. Read more about it in this article series: https://nieuwejournalistiek.nl/lezerscooperaties/.
After years of searching for a good survival model, through sponsors and micropayments, we are back to our first premise: those who value the fact that we are there, want to pay for it. Cultural press thus exists by the grace of donors and members. Indeed, formally, Culture Press is a cooperative society which readers can become members of. This also gives you a say in policy, although the journalistic independence non-negotiable. More and more people are donating larger or smaller amounts, and more and more people are becoming members, thus laying a lasting foundation for our existence. Donations made to articles reach the author of that particular article directly and for 100%.
Besides donations and memberships, we also receive occasional money for advertisements and commissioned articles. In addition, we occasionally receive contributions from funds earmarked for specific research stories.
Authors post their articles on the site mostly on their own initiative. They can decide for themselves whether to open the possibility for donations. When a reader turns his/her appreciation of the story into a donation, 100 per cent of the donation goes directly to the author.
Besides stories on its own initiative, there are productions for which the cooperative commissions. Commissioned articles are remunerated according to normal freelance fees, so generally double what freelancers at daily newspapers get. Commissioned articles do not have a donation button.
Simple: by submitting an article. The chief editors then determine whether the article meets the requirements. You will then receive a link through which you can register yourself as an author and also create your own profile picture and biography. After that, you can access the site's CMS (WordPress) and post your articles.
Membership fees are divided into 'private individuals' and 'institutions', with another distinction between large and small institutions. The choice is voluntary, we do not force a cultural institution to become a member for the institutional rate, but we do appreciate it. Especially since our login is often shared with more employees, and thus we may miss out on private membership fees.
Institutions also have the option (within reasonable conditions) to post their press releases directly on the site.
An overview of the rates can be found here.
Go to this page and make your choice.
This can be done via your personal page, under the 'subscriptions' tab.
You can always send a message. If what you have made is newsworthy, and one of the authors has the sense, time and opportunity to pay attention to it, you are in luck. That chance is not very high, because it costs quite some time, and thus money, to visit shows, go to exhibitions or read books. So for the author, it is always a trade-off. When you are a member, there is at least more benevolence, and certainly for member institutions we are happy to make room. However, there are no guarantees, and certainly no guarantees of positive coverage. We value our independence highly, so if the journalist doesn't like it, she is also free to write that down.
Very much so. Pointing out abuses in the industry and politics is our core business. We handle your information with the utmost discretion and promise ultimate secrecy. We do, of course, assess your information very thoroughly, and do not proceed overnight. So sometimes we do nothing with your information at the moment, but at a later stage it suddenly turns out to be very valuable. Then we will still use it. Tips can be mailed to: mailto:info@cultureelpersbureau.nl
You certainly can. We don't do 'banners', by the way. What we can do: a message submit, with images (royalty-free), text, video, you name it. We post that and treat it like all our other posts, so it gets shared on all our channels. Then we are talking about a considerable reach. Of course, the message gets to know that it is an advertisement. We don't do surreptitious advertising.
You can also create a podcast sponsors. Then we tell you something about what you have to sell, or you provide your own text. That costs as much per minute as a written ad.
Do you want a advertorial: a commissioned article, with you acting as the client. Provided it fits within our journalistic framework, this is quite possible. Of course, we make it clear in the layout that it is an advertorial.
In all cases, contact the chief editors: wijbrand.schaap@cultureelpersbureau.nl
Our best product is the journalistic collaboration, the so-called special. For example, you have a festival and you want us to report on it more or less intensively, without you wanting to have a say in the content. That is possible, we agree on a lump sum and promise to use quality journalism to follow your festival, event, or project: critical, but always expert and with great reach. Look for examples under Specials.
Contact the chief editors to discuss details.
An overview of all past and present authors can be found at this page.
This is our contact page.
We have a few hundred members and donors, and for privacy reasons we are of course not allowed to make the list public. However, we can say that it is many people who work in politics and civil service in The Hague, media, and of course in the arts as managers or artists, actors or musicians. Then there is a large group of people who are interested in what is going on in the art world. Not necessarily what is going on on the stages, in the galleries and the shelves of the bookshop, but rather what is going on behind the scenes, among the people pulling the strings. Cultural press also has a strong commitment to the people 'on the floor', as well as their audiences. We tell about issues that affect the interests of those two huge groups, and that is also where our membership comes from. So our members like to read about themselves.
Something says, if you've come this far in this FAQ, you already pretty much know why. When you become a member you make all this possible. You then enable a site in the Netherlands that has made keeping the art world on its toes a professional mission. As the Volkskrant also reported recently: we are the sector's watchdog. To do that professionally, you have to be busy with the site's mission 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So it cannot be a hobby alongside another job. That's the only way to keep quality high, and if you become a member, you belong to the select club of people whose heart lies with an art world that deals neatly with people and money. So you become a member because it feels really good to give something to a club of people who work tirelessly for that cause. Which then also becomes a little bit yours. And if we ever come out of lockdown again, we're also going to organise meetups so you can meet all these other like-minded people.
You certainly can, although keep in mind that we are not yet so rich that we can offer you a generous internship fee. But you do have the opportunity to learn the trade of online cultural journalist from the best in their field. Get in touch, and we'll see what's possible.