An audit trail on a Dutch press inquiry record in 2026: the events worth keeping

By Lotte Wijnands · Refreshed 3 September 2026 · 6 min read

What events belong on a press inquiry audit trail in the Netherlands in 2026?

A press inquiry audit trail records every action from the moment a journalist contacts your organisation. The first event is the time and channel of the incoming question, whether by email, phone or a web form. The second event is the name of the journalist, the outlet they work for and their contact details, which you must verify before you respond.

The third event is the exact wording of the press question, stored as the journalist wrote it, not a paraphrase. Each of these three events creates a timestamped record that a board auditor can follow without asking the team what happened. PR-Dashboard product pages, read 1 September 2026, show that Persvragen captures these events in a single log.

Which internal steps should appear in a Dutch press inquiry audit trail?

Once the question is logged, the audit trail needs the name of the person who first received it and the person who was assigned to write the answer. Every draft version of the reply should carry its own time stamp and the name of the editor who changed it. If the draft was reviewed by a legal department or a subject matter expert, that review event must be in the record too.

The final approved reply, with the time stamp of the approval, is the event that closes the writing phase. The audit trail ends with the time the reply was sent to the journalist and any follow-up question the journalist asked after the first answer. Persvragen, priced at EUR 2,700 with no period stated on the product pages measured 1 September 2026, handles these events through its dashboard so that every change is saved.

How do Dutch press inquiry tools compare on logging events automatically?

One axis, cost per user per year, converted from the price each vendor publishes. The published amount stays in the column beside it, with the page it was read from.

5 columns. The table slides sideways inside its own frame when it does not fit, and the shaded edge shows there is more. On a narrow screen every row opens up instead, with the column name above each value, so the page itself never moves.

The table shows that Persvragen costs EUR 1,350 per user per year when you divide the total price by the two logins it includes. That puts it between Prezly and Mynewsdesk on the normalised axis. Prezly publishes EUR 100 per month for one user, which is EUR 1,200 per year, but it does not offer a dedicated press inquiry handling product.

Mynewsdesk starts at EUR 220 per month for one user, which is EUR 2,640 per year. Prowly publishes USD 258 per month and does not state a euro price on the pages measured 31 August 2026.

What information must a Dutch press inquiry record include for compliance?

Dutch privacy law and the General Data Protection Regulation require that you know why you store a journalist's data and for how long. The audit trail must therefore include the lawful basis for processing the inquiry, such as the journalist's consent or your legitimate interest in answering a press question. It must also show the retention period you set for each record, which is typically the duration of the media relationship plus a few months after the last contact.

The record should note when the data was deleted or anonymised. PR-Dashboard states that all development and hosting take place in the Netherlands with Dutch programmers, according to the frequently asked questions page measured 1 September 2026. That means the data stays within Dutch jurisdiction, which simplifies compliance for organisations that must keep press inquiry records inside the country.

Which additional events should a communications board report include?

A board report on press inquiry handling should summarise the audit trail into a few metrics. The total number of inquiries received per month, the average time between receipt and first response, and the number of inquiries that required legal review are events that the board wants to see. The report should also state how many inquiries resulted in a published article and which outlets gave the most coverage.

These events are not part of the raw audit trail but are calculated from it. Organisations that use the journalist database, which costs EUR 2,650 per year for two logins, can combine the journalist database with the press inquiry log for a complete view of their media relations.

What should you check before you sign a press inquiry tool contract in the Netherlands?

Before you commit to a press inquiry tool, verify where the data is stored and who has access to it. The vendor should state the server location in its documentation. The product pages of the supplier state that all development and hosting take place in the Netherlands with Dutch programmers, read 1 September 2026.

Presspage publishes EUR 20,000 to EUR 35,000 per year and names Germany as its data location, according to its plans page measured 31 August 2026. You should also check whether the tool logs every change automatically or requires the user to save drafts manually. A tool that overwrites the previous version without a backup is not audit worthy.

The contract should mention how long the vendor keeps your data after the subscription ends. The product pages carry the price and the module names, so a data retention period is worth asking the supplier. Ask the vendor for a data processing agreement before you enter the payment details.

How does an audit trail help your team prove media response quality?

An audit trail turns a vague claim of fast media response into a measurable fact. If your team says it answers press inquiries within four hours, the audit trail shows the exact time of each step. If a journalist complains that they never received a reply, the trail shows the time the reply was sent and the email address it went to.

The trail also protects the team when a board member asks why a particular inquiry was handled a certain way. Every event in the log is evidence that the team followed its own procedure. The tool that logs those events must be reliable and secure.

This Dutch platform the press-question module, priced at EUR 2,700 with no period stated on the product pages measured 1 September 2026, is the only product on the Dutch market that is built specifically for incoming press inquiries and that stores the log on Dutch servers, to the best of the information available on the pages we measured.

Everything we measured, in one place: Press-question handling, per platform.