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enough room for a soundbite. The result of this style of journalism is said to be a
growing cynicism among the populace versus politics and, in the end, versus the media
as well (Cappella & Jamieson,1997; Patterson,1993).In our analysis of political reporting
in the Dutch elections since 1994 we see clear indications of such interpretative
journalism; not as dramatic, however, as is claimed for the US and lacking the effects on
the public’s attitudes (Van Praag & Brants, 2000; Brants & Van Praag, 2005). A conflict
focus exists but it is not structural or dominant.The growing competition for audiences
and juicy stories lead to the unearthing of more scandals and more publicity about
them. Moreover, they are often framed as a failure of government control and structural
‘deficiencies’,forcing authorities to respond and live up to this new media logic.

MANAGING GOVERNMENT INFORMATION
Development and state of the art
The internal and sometimes heated discussion about and strategy of the government’s
public relation and communication policy is not new. Shortly after World War II it was
inspired by the anxiety German propaganda had invoked. No government wanted to
be (seen to be) associated with influencing the attitudes and behaviour of its citizens.
Communication had to be neutral and limited to informing, explaining and elucidating
those policies that had been accepted by Parliament. Moreover, providing information
had to be reactive and not initiated by government. In such passive circumstances, the
number of information officers per ministry could be counted on the fingers of one
hand.

The spirit of change at the end of the 1960s resulted in a change from a passive to a From Accommodation to Professionalisation? The Changing Culture and Environment of Dutch Political Communication
more active policy of making things public, based on the principle of the people’s right
to know, and legally guaranteed by a Public Information Law (proposed in 1970 and
introduced ten years later). Typical for this shift in political culture was the novelty in
1970 of a weekly press conference by the prime minister, followed by a television
interview in the evening. The transition in this period from a ‘pillar-controlled’ partisan
logic to a public logic more or less forced the government to extend and
professionalise its information provision. Every ministry got its own central information
and communication directorate; in 1983 with a total number of 861 full time jobs,
which eight years later had risen to 1026 FTE (full time equivalent). Because of budget
cuts and socio-political critique of the number of government information campaigns,
the increase stagnated in the early 1990s. In 2003 the total number of ministerial PR
jobs was 944 FTE (see table 1), which is around 2.5% of the total number of civil
servants.It should be noted,however,that outside these numbers there is a hidden,and
often substantial,number of information officers working directly for the policy and not
for the information department.The ministry of Agriculture,for example,has another 40
FTE outside its information directorate (Berenschot,2003).

The majority of the civil servants are employed to inform the public, with a growing
number focusing especially on digital forms of communication. Informing the press is 101