Can I name someone in an article?

You can if the story calls for it. A Dutch court looks at whether the name adds something to the public interest of the piece, and weighs that against the harm to the person named. There is more room for this with a well-known person or a director acting in that role than with a private individual. With a suspect in criminal proceedings, the bar is higher. Note that someone can be recognisable even without a name, through a job title, a place of residence or a detail people around them will recognise.

How much time should a newsroom give for a response?

There is no fixed deadline. The Guidelines of the Netherlands Press Council call for sufficient opportunity to respond. The graver the allegation and the larger the file, the more time is reasonable: a few hours may be enough for a short news item, while a week is more appropriate for an extensive investigation. If the person concerned asks for more time, it counts whether you could reasonably have given it. Record what you asked, when, and what came back.

What does a legal review of an article or broadcast cost?

That depends on the length of the publication and the number of allegations in it. A single article with one or two allegations takes less time than a documentary or a series with several episodes. We agree the cost with you in advance, so you know where you stand. Set that against what interim injunction proceedings cost if things go wrong: for the defence alone, easily €5,000 to €20,000 excluding VAT, before any damages.

Pre-publication legal review

An article, broadcast, documentary or podcast episode that makes a serious allegation can be reviewed under Dutch law before it is published. You then know whether the facts carry the allegation, whether the right of reply has been handled properly and whether the framing matches what you can substantiate. The review gives you the choice back: publish as it stands, amend a passage or ask someone for a response first.

Liaise reviews publications for newsrooms, publishers, broadcasters, producers and documentary and podcast makers, sometimes a single piece and sometimes shortly before every episode of a series. We also know the other side: we act for people and businesses who are written about, so we know what a cease-and-desist letter will seize on.

Publication in preparation? Call 020 675 88 21 or get in contact. If need be, a review can be done within a day.

When should you have a publication legally reviewed?

Not every piece needs to go past a lawyer. A review pays off when the publication accuses someone of something that could affect their career or business, and certainly when one of these situations applies:

an allegation of a criminal offence, abuse or fraud against a recognisable person or a business;
a source who stays anonymous, or a source with their own conflict with the person concerned;
recordings made with a hidden camera or microphone, or a doorstep interview;
a person who has died, with relatives who may come forward;
another party who has already let you know through a lawyer that a claim is coming.

In those cases a cease-and-desist letter or interim injunction proceedings are a real prospect. An amendment before publication then costs less than proceedings afterwards, and a piece that has been legally reviewed stands stronger if it does come to a case.

With a book the choices are different, because a print run cannot be undone and a novel can be recognisable without a single real name.

More about a book about real people →

Which allegations in a publication you must be able to substantiate

We go through the publication allegation by allegation. For every statement we look at whether it is a fact or a value judgment, and what support the file holds for it. A statement of fact must be backed by what you knew at the moment of publication. A value judgment has more room, but it too needs a factual basis.

Then the framing. A headline that promises more than the text delivers, a thumbnail or edit that tells a different story from the footage, or a question that suggests suspicion: the court weighs all of it. The Guidelines of the Netherlands Press Council (in Dutch) also call for a clear distinction between facts, claims and opinions.

Finally, the file itself. What you have in sources, documents, notes and correspondence determines what your defence looks like if a claim comes. We tell you what is missing, so you can still record it.

Asking for a response before publication: what you put to the person accused

Under the Guidelines, anyone accused in a publication gets sufficient opportunity to respond, preferably in the same publication. Put the allegations to them concretely, with the facts you base them on, rather than as a general request for comment. Anything you do not put to them, they can later raise as something that was never checked.

There is no fixed deadline. The graver the allegation and the larger the file, the more time is reasonable. A week for an extensive investigation is different from a few hours for a news item. Record what you asked, when, and what came back. And work the response into the piece: a reply that only ends up in a footnote carries less weight. How this looks from the other side is set out under the right of reply.

When you may make someone identifiable in an article or broadcast

Naming someone is allowed if the story calls for it, but the court looks at whether the name adds something to the public interest. Someone can be recognisable without a name too, through a job title, a place of residence or a detail people around them will recognise. With a suspect in criminal proceedings, the bar is higher.

For personal data, journalism enjoys an exemption from much of the GDPR, but not all of it. What still applies is set out on our page on data protection law. For images of recognisable people, image rights come into play as well.

Who is responsible for a republished allegation or AI output

If you take an allegation from another outlet, you publish it again and are responsible for it yourself. “According to the newspaper” does not protect you if the newspaper got it wrong. Quotes from an interview are used in the context the interviewee could expect. And information from an AI tool is checked like any other source: responsibility stays with the newsroom.

A newsroom’s liability for comments under an article

A news site or broadcaster that allows comments is not automatically liable for them. If it receives a notice of a clearly unlawful comment and leaves it up, it can be (Article 6 of the Digital Services Act). In 2015, in Delfi v Estonia, the European Court of Human Rights held that a news portal could be held liable for clearly unlawful comments it did not remove promptly. A reporting button, moderation rules and a fixed procedure for notices are therefore no luxury.

Having a documentary or series about real people reviewed

We then review the script, the edit and the announcements. A production distributed with errors and omissions insurance also needs a clearance report and documents for the insurer. That is covered under errors and omissions insurance and clearing rights.

How this plays out in court is shown by the cases over the Dutch drama series De Maatschap, which we handled: seven attempts to stop the broadcast, all seven unsuccessful.

How a legal review of a publication works and what it costs

You send the draft text, the script or the edit, together with the file. We mark the passages that carry risk, suggest different wording where needed and tell you whose response you still need. For a single article that can be done within a day; for a documentary or series we plan it around the edit. The cost depends on the length and the number of allegations; we agree it with you in advance.

Would you like a publication reviewed? Call 020 675 88 21 or get in contact.