Dijkgraaf responded to questions from NSC MP Rosanne Hertzberger, who is concerned about the countervailing power at Dutch universities, embodied by the university council but also by university media. “I would like to pay some attention to that other thorn in the side, and that is the university press. We hear disturbing reports about the increasing harassment of journalists from independent university media,” Hertzberger said. “We hear how journalists are denied access to public meetings, or how editors-in-chief are ordered by administrators to remove articles.”  

The NSC MP was implicitly referring to events at Delta (TU Delft) recently, where the legal department of the university threatened to hold the editor-in-chief liable if an article about social insecurity was not removed. In October last year, the editorial staff of Cursor put the website 'on black' after then-editor-in-chief Han Konings was removed from his position after discussions over a critical article.  

George Orwell 

University media like Delta and Cursor should not become happy glossies with safe stories about the university, according to Hertzberger. “I like to paraphrase George Orwell: ‘Journalism is publishing what someone doesn't want published; everything else is PR.’ University journalism is a crucial countervailing power to democracy within our educational institutions, which also oversees the quality of education.”  

Dijkgraaf agreed. “Independent journalism and press freedom are a great good, especially within academic debate,” he said. “The concerns that have been raised, I myself find worrying. We see a number of incidents that show that some institutions are struggling a bit with this. An academic press is an excellent way to keep people on their toes. That is why it is important that the editorial departments of university and college newspapers are able to operate independently. It is the responsibility of institutions to guard editorial independence and make sure they do not degenerate into a PR outlet.”