New Beginnings
Most likely, nobody noticed when, at 12:20 on December 20th, 2012, a picture of this website's current mascot was made public. With the same stubbornness of her hound dog lineage, Zoe doggedly pursues anything that piques her curiosity, oftentimes putting this pursuit above all else.
Reporters and editors are not so different.
When an item needs to be gotten, daily news journalists often make the story their immediate priority, sacrificing all else for the next "good get."
NL Times aims to be the most comprehensive pursuit of news in the Netherlands for an English-speaking audience. Quite simply, we have launched this site because non-Dutch speakers make up a high percentage of the population in the Netherlands, and that one of the main complaints by expats in that country is a lack of information in English.
We believe that having access to news in your local area is critical to being connected to your region. Few people want to feel like an ostrich with their head in the sand. With little access to news -whether it be good news or bad- the non-Dutch speakers have one less reason to identify with the locals, and dive into society instead of standing on the sidelines.
NL Times will take some time to build up, and will go through some growing pains. In the beginning, we will likely only publish a few stories on the web Monday through Friday, but our goals are much loftier with a target of being a full cross media experience including video, audio, print and new media.
We aim to add as much original content as possible, in addition to bringing you the top Netherlands news stories of the day. We ask you to stick with us while we perfect things on our end, including the site's overall design. Thank you for supporting us, and we will see you in 2013.
As the Dutch say, "Gelukkig nieuwjaar!"