TV2's original article by Fredrik Græsvik, over which Manfred Gerstenfeld took TV2 to the PFU media complaints
Something very strange has recently happened. The article above, which is based on an interview, has been switched for the article below in a non-event most people will not even notice. Except for one thing: TV2’s original article above, by journalist Fredrik Græsvik, has been taken to the PFU (Norwegian media complaints hearing) by the interviewee – Manfred Gerstenfeld, together with the text of the interview which can be viewed on the video above it. The heading in the original article runs: “Norway is a jewhating nation” with the subheading saying:”Israeli political scientist furious with Norwegians”. The original article itself claims, in what Gerstenfeld upholds are misquotes, that Gerstenfeld says that Norwegians are “barbaric and unintelligent”. In the video however Graesvik claimed that Gerstenfeld said that Norwegian are “barbaric and unintellectual.” Gerstenfeld says that he did not say this either. Later TV2 changed also the text of the article into “barbaric and unintellectual.”TV2’s journalist Fredrik Græsvik is adamant that the interview upon which article is based was fair and unbiased. Manfred Gerstenfeld is equally determined that it is not. So after an exchange of letters, of to the PFU they go, TV2 and Gerstenfeld, both insisting that they are right. Now, with both parties having presented their case to the PFU, we see the original article massaged into the article below.
New edition with new headings, with the article now attributed to a different journalist. The article above, which is the one taken to PFU, no longer exists.
The heading now reads: “Israeli political scientist critisizes Norway’s perception of Israel” with the sub-heading and the rest of the article identical with the original. With one exception. The article is now attributed to another journalist – Kjersti Johannessen.
This turn of events is somewhat confusing and leaves the following questions unanswered:
1) Did Fredrik Græsvik write the original article? If so, why is the article, under a different heading, now attributed to a different journalist? Graesvik denied writing this text in a letter to Gerstenfeld dated 16 March. Why could not he already in March convince his employer TV2 to change the byline to that of another author?
2) Did Kjersti Johannessen write the original article? If so, why was it attributed to Fredrik Græsvik? Who wrote the article?
3) The Græsvik-Gerstenfeld dispute is presently being treated in the PFU media complaints hearing, where TV2 has insisted that the original version was fair and objective. If this still is the argument of TV2, why has the article been massaged? And if TV2 now agrees to having botched the first interview and article, how come this is not mentioned in the article?
4) Why does TV2 insist upon referring to Gerstenfeld as a political scientist, when he has repeatedly informed them that he is no such thing? The new text is even worse than the previous one as Gerstenfeld is now referred to as a “political scientist” not only in the subheading but also in the heading.
TV2 is the same station which was condemned by PFU for the Jespersen satire and paid for bringing the notorious Holocaust denier David Irving to Norway to be interviewed (The old man was, paradoxically enough, boldly run out of town by a mob of violent Finkelsteinians). Moreover only a few years back, a journalist in TV2 managed to fall in love with the infamous Mr.Bhatti, who carried out a terrorist attack on the Oslo synagogue and plotted to blow up the USA embassy. As a consequence of TV2’s interview and article with Gerstenfeld, 15 Norwegian news sources disseminated the NTB story of the “Norway-hating-right-wing-thinktank” chairman across the nation, thereby enraging and alienating large segments of the Norwegian population. The story was then smoothly imported into Sweden by TT (The Swedish News Agency), where it did similar damage. Manfred Gerstenfeld, the editor of a book on anti-Semitism in the Nordic countries, was thus effectively given the coup de grâce before the fight even started.
While it certainly must be difficult to operate a news channel, TV2 needs to try just a little bit harder in order to get this right. As it stands today the situation is an embarrassment to all of Norway.
This just won’t do.
I just want to point out that it is normal courtesy to correct mistakes. That is what Mr Gerstenfeld asked TV 2 to do. And that is what we have done. That is NOT manipulation. It still is the original article that will be judged by the PFU.
For me it is also important to point out that the article was NOT written by me, but by journalist Kjersti Johannesen at TV 2. She wrote the article based on my TV interview with Mr Gerstenfeld, and did mistakenly not put her own byline on the story. I do take full responsibility of the TV story, but have no responsibility whatsoever for the written article. That responsibility lay with journalist Kjersti Johannesen and her editors at TV 2.