🇳🇱 NRC Handelsblad

About NRC Handelsblad

NRC Handelsblad, now known as NRC, was formed in 1970 from the merger of two older liberal newspapers. Since 2015, it has been owned by the Belgian publishing company Mediahuis, a privately held family business. The Lux et Libertas Foundation holds a priority stake in Mediahuis NRC BV to safeguard its journalistic independence.

Media Bias/Fact Check rates NRC as Left-Center Biased, noting its editorial positions slightly favor the left, but gives it a High rating for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact-check record. Ground News also assigns a High factuality rating. The outlet is widely regarded as a newspaper of record in the Netherlands, known for in-depth reporting and analysis. A recent controversy involved a former editor-in-chief, Peter Vandermeersch, who was suspended for using AI to generate newsletters with 'hallucinated' quotes, an issue he attributed to a lack of human oversight. The Netherlands generally enjoys strong press freedoms, consistently ranking high in global indices, though concerns about journalist safety and increasing threats persist.