Lunchen en fluisteren

For this master thesis, I have conducted a research about whom are leaking information in the ‘political capitol’ of the Netherlands, the Hague. Beside identifying these persons, this research shows us why they are leaking information and how they do this. Many newspapers and other news programs use anonymous sources for their information. In their articles they often use them as follows: “Sources within the party tell us that…”. Dutch studies show us that political journalists are dependent on their sources. But none of these studies discusses the relationship between these sources and the journalists. That is why this qualitative study, consisting of a document analysis and five in-depth interviews with Dutch parliamentary journalists, is giving a preliminary answer to these questions. The results show that leaking information is widespread amongst politicians. Journalists do everything they can to maintain their relationships with these sources. The anonymity of these sources is always guaranteed by these journalists, because they will never hear anything when their sources have to speak ‘on the record’.