The board members of the Dutch East India Company (1602-1795), the Heren Zeventien, promulgated various decrees in which they forbade to bring out information regarding their colonies in the Dutch East Indies and Batavia in letters, manuscripts and printed matter. But in Batavia some inventive Company servants and even staff members got around these regulations, as did some printers in Holland. They published newspapers like Bataviase Nouvelles and Vendu-Nieuws, and also the specialized journal Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap. The initiators of this journal joined hands with the Dutch world of learning and its journals. This article provides an overview of early journalism in the Dutch East Indies and thus contributes to the reconstruction of the literary and cultural climate in Batavia at the time of the VOC.