For years, Valkering Media has worked in harmony, first on one, then two, and ultimately three full-fledged sports websites. A tight knit team of enthusiastic, driven journalists has turned Ajax Showtime, F1 Maximaal, and In de Leiderstrui into well-visited, high-quality, and popular platforms. How? It comes down to five strong pillars.
Quality over quantity
Every day the desks are pushed to think deliberately about what we publish. Of course we like it when an article performs, but only when it does so on the strength of its quality, originality, and distinctive voice, in ways that set each of our sites apart from the competition.
Yes, we sometimes pick up reporting from other media, always with a source credit and link to the colleague’s work, and still with substance and intent. We’d rather publish eight thought-through stories than fifteen on autopilot. In a world of clickbait and quick hits, that’s how we choose to stand out.
Courage over safety
We cover the day’s news, but we prefer to think one or more steps ahead. What began with sending an intern to Ajax youth matches, eventually launching a full youth desk, grew into reporting trips to football, Formula 1, and cycling events around the world.
We’ve achieved this by trying to be newsworthy every day, with bold, original angles wherever possible. Don’t ask only the safe questions, think beyond headlines, and don’t shy away from your responsibility as a journalist. Each team meets daily to ask what else is possible.
Criticism will come, fair or not. When it does, you should be able to stand by your choices. Think before you act; but once you have thought it through, go for it. That’s how the best stories make it to the page, and how we’ve built a name in three sports.
Solidarity over ego
From the days when Ajax Showtime was mostly run from home, there has always been constant, cross-team contact. At Valkering Media you move together, even when you work for different sites. Editor-in-chiefs plan together for how all three brands move forward; that means investing time and energy in collaboration. You grant others success because you know your own platform benefits too.
It’s no coincidence that many journalists have stayed for years despite outside interest, they believe in the project. There’s no room for ego here; in the end it doesn’t matter whose name sits above an article. In a world where it’s eat-or-be-eaten, that mindset is unusual, but it’s precisely what keeps the best work on the table.
Honesty over spin
Solidarity requires an open mindset and honesty. That can mean tough debates, from intern to editor-in-chief. The absence of rigid ranks has always made it easier for people at Valkering Media to speak plainly, internally among journalists and externally with partners.
Community over the crowd
Journalism ultimately comes down to reach, views, and hard euros. We believe you get there by speaking to a loyal audience through your own channels and earning return visits with quality articles. If you arrive via Google, our aim is that you immediately want to come back, and across all three platforms we succeed at that.
Ajax Showtime, now a seasoned player, has built a large community of readers who start their day with coffee and a shortcut to the site. We see the same accounts reacting daily; some have even become moderators. In F1 and cycling, a loyal audience keeps returning to the homepage as well.
Slowly but surely, readers become part of the Valkering Media community, not just numbers in a crowd. Because we can write endlessly, but what counts is that the audience values it.
Moving forward, true to Sjoerd’s spirit
Valkering Media was, is, and remains the life’s work of our late founder Sjoerd Valkering. In 2011, wanting to professionalize Ajax Showtime, he found an office by the ArenA, hired trainee journalists, and the train left the station. Ever since, new and current staff have heard the same message: everything is possible if you put your heart and soul into it.
To safeguard quality, Sjoerd constantly challenged his people. Courage was rewarded, with responsibility, growth, or simply a heartfelt compliment. He delegated brilliantly without losing control, and he granted his journalists every opportunity the profession could offer, opportunities they seized because of a shared sense of belonging and responsibility.
Training mostly young journalists into writers who dare to chase quality, Sjoerd built unity: close oversight, but also drinks, meetings, and eventually physical newsrooms that turned a group of individuals into a tight media team. He could speak hard truths, but was first in line to give praise for good work.
Ask anyone who has worked at Valkering Media who the most remarkable, dedicated, and inspiring boss of their career was, and you’ll hear the same name: Sjoerd. At times inscrutable, always big-hearted. We miss him deeply. Every day, across all our sites, we try to move forward in Sjoerd’s spirit, because we know we’re not just running three big sports sites; above all, we’re carrying on Sjoerd’s life’s work the right way.
