The 2025 Machiavelli Prize goes to Het Sinterklaasjournaal. This was announced by the board of the Machiavelli Foundation. The prize is awarded annually for a remarkable achievement in the field of public communication. According to the jury, the program has been a constant and unifying force in Dutch society for 25 years. It has grown into an annual benchmark, providing daily magic and topics for conversation for young and old, viewers with and without children. Do you know why? Is Niccolò Machiavelli still relevant today?
Machiavelli Prize 2025: The Sinterklaas News
The 2025 Machiavelli Prize has been awarded to Het Sinterklaasjournaal. The board of the Machiavelli Foundation announced this today. The prize is awarded annually for a remarkable achievement in the field of public communication. Het Sinterklaasjournaal, a program by the NTR, receives the prize because 'the program has been a constant and unifying force in Dutch society for twenty-five years. It has grown into an annual benchmark that provides daily magic and topics for conversation for young and old, viewers with and without children,' according to the jury report.
The Netherlands (2011): The 16th sheet of the 60 Years of TV series shows Dieuwertje Blok from the Sinterklaasjournaal. From 2001 to 2023, Dieuwertje Blok (1957-2025) presented the Sinterklaasjournaal.'Sharp, humorous, and with exceptional social sensitivity, Het Sinterklaasjournaal operates at the intersection of tradition and change, always with a distinctive and surprising interpretation,' the jury report continues. 'It is exceptionally impressive how Het Sinterklaasjournaal communicates on multiple levels: in simple language, accessible and understandable to everyone, without sacrificing sharpness,' the jury report states.The Netherlands (2011): The 15th sheet of the 60 Years of TV series shows the Arrival of Sinterklaas.
The award will be presented on February 25, 2026, at 5:00 PM by Marja Wagenaar, Chair of the Machiavelli Foundation, at the Nieuwspoort Press Centre. The award ceremony is open to anyone who registers via our website and can also be followed live from 5:00 PM onwards via NPO Politiek and the Nieuwspoort channels. Previous winners include Saskia Belleman, Jaap Velema, Johan Remkes, Marion Koopmans and Diederik Gommers, journalistic collective Bellingcat, She Decides, Mayor Eberhard van der Laan, HRH Princess Máxima, and national football coach Bert van Marwijk. Source: Machiavelli Foundation.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 – 1527)
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469–1527) was an Italian diplomat, political philosopher, military strategist, historian, poet, playwright, and humanist based in Florence during the Italian Renaissance. He is considered the founder of modern political science. He served as Secretary of the Second Chancellery of the Florentine Republic from 1498 to 1512, when the Medici had already lost their power but would later regain it.
Machiavelli was a versatile thinker, who became best known for his groundbreaking work Il Principe (The frost, ca. 1516). It was not published until after his death. Due to its controversial content, it became Machiavelli's most famous book. In it, he argued for the right of a prince to rule autocratically if the situation required it. This earned him a great deal of hatred and criticism from contemporaries and later intellectuals. For instance, Niccolò Machiavelli has been dubbed the man who 'wrote with the finger of the devil'. However, he was also (later) credited with much praise as the founder of modern political science.
In his book The Prince He described that a king or ruler was allowed to act harshly if it proved necessary. The goal, governing a state well, justified the means, Machiavelli argued. In this work—in contrast to the then-dominant Catholicism and humanism—he rejected justice as the goal of the political system. All ethical rules had to yield to the interest of the state (raison d'état) if the situation demanded it. And this was necessary more than once, for according to Machiavelli, human nature was thoroughly evil, and has been since time immemorial. People were therefore incapable of governing themselves. A core concept in Il Principe is the term virtu (course of action / virtue), which, in the context of Machiavelli's argument, referred to the political decisiveness of the ruler rather than moral virtue. Alongside virtu, the concept of fortuna (fate) played an important role in the book.
Omslag van Machiavelli's Il Principe en La Vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca uit 1550.
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The Machiavelli Foundation aims to contribute to the debate on public communication in society. At the intersection of society and politics, of governance and democracy, the Foundation encourages people to make their voices heard regarding the contribution that communication makes to societal formation and change. The Foundation does this, among other things, by awarding its annual prize: the Machiavelli Prize. This prize is awarded to a person or organization that has excelled in public communication. When considering the ideas of the political thinker Machiavelli, one is quick to think of the principle that 'the end justifies the means'. And indeed, the Machiavelli Prize goes to the person who has put this principle into practice most effectively. However, it is awarded in a positive way, for a worthy cause, and with a socially relevant outcome.
Niccolò Machiavelli is one of the few political thinkers from the past who still enjoys fame and a broad readership today. Although five centuries separate us from him, his name still resonates in popular culture and the academic world. By addressing the question of how a leader must act to safeguard his strong position, this Florentine Renaissance statesman offers striking observations on the driving forces of human action that have lost none of their significance today and will be surprisingly relevant to the modern reader. In bookstores: The Prince.
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The 2025 Machiavelli Prize goes to Het Sinterklaasjournaal. This was announced by the board of the Machiavelli Foundation. The prize is awarded annually for a remarkable achievement in the field of public communication. According to the jury, the program has been a constant and unifying force in Dutch society for 25 years. It has grown into an annual benchmark, providing daily magic and topics for conversation for young and old, viewers with and without children. Do you know why? Is Niccolò Machiavelli still relevant today?
Machiavelli was a versatile thinker, who became best known for his groundbreaking work Il Principe (The frost, ca. 1516). It was not published until after his death. Due to its controversial content, it became Machiavelli's most famous book. In it, he argued for the right of a prince to rule autocratically if the situation required it. This earned him a great deal of hatred and criticism from contemporaries and later intellectuals. For instance, Niccolò Machiavelli has been dubbed the man who 'wrote with the finger of the devil'. However, he was also (later) credited with much praise as the founder of modern political science.
In his book The Prince He described that a king or ruler was allowed to act harshly if it proved necessary. The goal, governing a state well, justified the means, Machiavelli argued. In this work—in contrast to the then-dominant Catholicism and humanism—he rejected justice as the goal of the political system. All ethical rules had to yield to the interest of the state (raison d'état) if the situation demanded it. And this was necessary more than once, for according to Machiavelli, human nature was thoroughly evil, and has been since time immemorial. People were therefore incapable of governing themselves. A core concept in Il Principe is the term virtu (course of action / virtue), which, in the context of Machiavelli's argument, referred to the political decisiveness of the ruler rather than moral virtue. Alongside virtu, the concept of fortuna (fate) played an important role in the book.
Niccolò Machiavelli is one of the few political thinkers from the past who still enjoys fame and a broad readership today. Although five centuries separate us from him, his name still resonates in popular culture and the academic world. By addressing the question of how a leader must act to safeguard his strong position, this Florentine Renaissance statesman offers striking observations on the driving forces of human action that have lost none of their significance today and will be surprisingly relevant to the modern reader. In bookstores: The Prince. 
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