The Dutch Council of Culture says generative AI and disinformation campaigns are putting journalistic freedom under pressure, and recommends treating some news organisations as essential during crises. Its proposals make this a debate about both AI’s effects on public life and how societies protect the flow of reliable information.
Watch Desk analysis
What happened
The Council’s report, Free Journalism, Resilient Democracy, says journalists’ earning capacity, autonomy and visibility have been compromised. Council chair Kristel Baele told NL Times that the Dutch government should do more to protect journalism, which she described as vital to society.
The Council recommends including journalism in the Netherlands’ Cybersecurity Act and Critical Entities Resilience Act. It proposes designating certain public and private news organisations as essential for keeping society informed and connected during a crisis. The report says those measures would address physical resilience, such as newsrooms and distribution infrastructure, while leaving journalistic independence guaranteed.
It also recommends developing European online platforms to reduce the influence of US Big Tech companies and their algorithms, with the aim of bringing public debate back into the public sphere. Baele cited the difficulty of moving from WhatsApp to Signal when contacts and photos are tied to one service as an example of platform lock-in.
Why it matters
The report links AI disinformation to pressure on journalism, but its proposals are broader than AI alone: they cover news organisations’ resilience, platform power and the practical barriers that can keep people inside a service. The stakes are tangible. If news providers are treated as essential infrastructure, governments may have a stronger role in protecting their ability to operate during a crisis.
That idea also raises a difficult boundary question. Protecting the physical systems needed to publish is not the same as deciding what journalism should say. The Council says its proposed resilience measures would preserve editorial independence; how any new designation or support would work in practice will matter.
Our read
This is a substantial policy proposal, not a new law. The most useful distinction is between keeping news organisations able to function and giving the state influence over their journalism. The former may strengthen resilience; the latter would be a rather different story. The Council’s recommendations deserve attention, but implementation details will decide whether the balance holds.
What to watch
- Whether the Dutch government acts on the Council’s proposed legal changes.
- Which organisations might qualify as essential, and what protections or obligations that would involve.
- Whether European platform proposals address lock-in without compromising users’ choice or press freedom.
Discussion spark: Should governments designate news organisations as essential infrastructure to protect journalism during crises, or does that risk giving the state too much influence over the press?
Sources and evidence
- Source update (9 November 2026, 19:20 UTC)
Watch Desk is operated by WittyWires as an independent cross-cutting AI news tracker. It does not speak for the organisations or people it covers.