Meet our new Board member: Maike Olij

We are delighted to announce two new entries in the Board of Stichting European Press Prize: Maike Olij and Beata Balogová. Maike is a creative research expert, and explores the relevance of news and information from the end user’s perspective. Beata was a member of our Preparatory Committee, and is a widely known journalist and editor-in-chief of SME, a major daily and news site in Slovakia.

To introduce them to our audience, we asked them a few questions about themselves, their role and their goals.

In this blog, our interview with Maike. Click here to read the interview with Beata.

Maike Olij 

Maike Olij is the treasurer of the Board of the European Press Prize. As a ‘creative scientist,’ Maike Olij researches the presentation and relevance of news and information from the end-user’s perception. She develops innovative formats, media concepts and strategies for, among others, broadcasters and public organisations in the Netherlands and Europe. 

Among other things, you develop innovative formats, media concepts and strategies for broadcasters and public organisations. What key insight(s) from that experience will you bring to your role on the Board of the European Press Prize?

Probably the focus on audiences; with my research into ‘news needs’ I was at the start of the ‘audience turn in journalism’ and I can’t help but always focus on this perspective. It’s so often that we see important, skillful and thorough journalistic research that just fails to have impact on the right audiences. To realise that there are many different ways you can have ‘impact’ is crucial for anyone working in journalism, so you can incorporate this in your production from the start and be creative in ways to increase impact.

At the same time, in recent years I have seen that there can also be an overfocus on audiences, especially individual (online) audiences. As we can measure so much online, we tend to mix up our ‘means’ with our ‘goals’ – rather than measuring if we actually explained something in an understandable manner, we look at how many people read an article. This can be a perverse incentive, overlooking the public value of journalism. So for me, focussing on audiences will always need to be a combination of individuals and collectives in a society.

What stands out to you about how end-users perceive journalism, and how would you connect that to the mission of the European Press Prize?

I believe that these are confusing times for audiences, when it comes to journalism. In much of the research I and others carried out, you see that the distinction between genres is getting blurrier. Where does journalism start and end? How is it different from other forms of media? Why are influencers and journalists not the same? The way we increasingly consume ‘context-less’ makes the divide even harder; an opinion article in a newspaper means something completely different when published as a snippet on social media.

Add to this the strongly polarised  debates we have in society, in which journalism is no longer a ’neutral profession,’ but often gets sucked into one of the sides of the discussion –  quite often unintentionally. And you understand just how hard it is for people to find, consume and appreciate quality journalism. We need to do all we can to help people in this search, as I strongly believe that in the end, áll people have a need for independently produced, reflective and critical journalism.

What are you looking forward to most in this new role within the Board of the European Press Prize?

Probably to be working on this important mission together with such a skillful and motivated team. And of course to be able to support and encourage the creme-de-la-creme of public interest journalism in Europe. By highlighting their efforts and successes, we can spread the narrative that this is what we need as democratic societies. My previous experiences with European outlets that are truly making a difference in their respective countries (amongst others in the Reference network) have taught me just how inspiring that is – and I expect the same from all European Press Prize nominees!

To learn more about Maike Olij’s work, visit her website, bureaumaike.nl