50 years NRC – NRC

PREFACE

Thursday, October 1, will be fifty years ago NRC Handelsblad first appeared. We celebrate that with this anniversary edition of NRC Weekend. Besides the current stories of the week you will find a lot about yourself. When we celebrate our birthday, we think first of all of you, our indispensable companion. Because without your trust, our journalism cannot exist.

Since that very first edition in 1970, you, reader, have been the driving force behind our innovation. Algemeen Handelsblad (from 1828) and The New Rotterdamsche Courant (1844) not only merged, but also formed the first quality newspaper in the Netherlands. That was new: a newspaper that had no other goal than to provide the reader with reliable, versatile information, without imposing judgment.

Fifty years later, this is still the heart of all NRC journalism. We have continued to keep up with your changing habits. In 1995, NRC was the first national newspaper to have a site, followed in 2009 by the first NRC app. In 2006 there was a morning newspaper, nrc.next. It now contains the same wide range as on the site and in the afternoon edition.

René Moerland, editor-in-chief NRC

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Now, in 2020, it is time for renewal again. In addition to being read, NRC journalism is also increasingly listened to, via our podcasts. Next month NRC will launch its own audio app with a wealth of journalistic stories.

But first this anniversary edition. You may recognize yourself in one of the reader types that Renske de Greef has drawn on the Back page. Are you “the grandparent with the brilliant grandchild” or “the permanently disappointed intellectual”? Japke-d. Bouma praises you for your contributions to her column. Karel Knip is relieved in his Everyday Science section that you will be silent about your shower curtain from now on. And Janneke Vreugdenhil cooks a party menu with a twist (the potato is in the pudding, the semolina in the main dish). Take part in a reader competition: create art with the newspaper (Pablo Picasso and Willem de Kooning preceded you). Arjen van Veelen allows you to experience what he recently discovered for himself: how you feel in a kayak. “That is why I wish everyone the lux, the libertas and especially the lightness of an inflatable kayak.”

That story can also be heard in a podcast series specially made for the 50th anniversary entitled Cheers !, which starts today. With Robbert Dijkgraaf, Beatrice de Graaf and Marcel van Roosmalen, among others. We also give you an online photo exhibition, in which we present seven NRC photographers and their work. The series Typically the Netherlands by Jan Dirk van der Burg is featured in this anniversary edition. I wish you much reading, viewing and listening pleasure.

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