THE DAILY FILLING OF THE COLUMNS

A commentary on what has been happening on the stock markets takes up a prime position in all financial sections of daily newspapers. The same goes for long lists of stock and bond prices. Apart from that, a large part of the financial sections is filled with ordinary news from corporate industry, such as short descriptions of a recently published annual report or messages based on a press release published by a company or a press conference held by a company.

Press Meetings and Conferences
In the Netherlands it is especially common practice with the bigger companies to invite the financial press after the publication of, for example, profit figures or the annual report. This is usually meant to give some further explanation and for answering questions. The management of large companies often also see these regular meetings as a good way of building up or maintaining a good relationship with the financial press. Thereby bearing in mind that this may also involve major internationals with a broad familiarity within Dutch society.

Visits to regularly held press meetings organised by large companies often offer the financial journalists the chance to give their report in the paper an exclusive quality. There is also the opportunity to use these visits for an individual commentary or as a basis for feature articles.

Companies that issue shares, or float on the stock exchange for the first time, also tend to invite the financial press for a press conference. Other important occasions, such as merger announcements, a major investment or a re-organisation can also be a reason for organising a press conference.

Exclusive Interviews
Financial journalists are also regularly invited by the management of companies for an exclusive interview. This obviously has to involve a subject that is also interesting for the journalist. It also occurs very often that journalists take the initiative themselves for a meeting with the management of businesses. Sometimes for a contribution to an article with a somewhat wider scope of interest, in which other companies are also involved, sometimes because of the need of pure background information. But, occasionally, also because the journalist is interested in certain business plans and wants to write an exclusive article on them.

News Collection
Businesses generally take the initiative to appear in the columns of the financial sections of the large newspapers. Much copy is also produced by the free collection of news by financial journalists, for example after extraordinary developments on the stock exchange. A statement from press agencies can also give rise to further investigation to come to an article with a more exclusive content.

More extensive research is not rarely done after an incoming tip-off about a problem at a particular company or something that is about to take place. Further investigation usually implies that the journalist enquires for more information at the company or institution involved. In principle, nothing will be published as a true news item purely on the basis of rumours or a single tip-off. The right to hear and be heard is very important within Dutch financial journalism.

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