Screenshots from Norwegian newspapers Aftenposten and DagenMagazinet
Not even in Scandinavia does democracy work flawlessly. Is there an invisible hand at work?
In the screenshot above (left) we see an op-ed from yesterday’s Aftenposten, with Eirik Vatnøy from Civita, a liberal think tank, asking some rather poignant questions. Vatnøy points out that it appears as if the Scandinavian media has taken it upon itself to shield the electorate from undesirable politicians.
The article inserted on the right hand side is from yesterday’s DagenMagazinet, reporting on how the conservative parties of Denmark protest against the censorship of Sverigedemokratene and requests that the Council of Europe sends observers to the Swedish election.
Editorship is not censorship
The screenshot below is from a column in today’s Dagsavisen, with columnist Hege Ulstein pointing out the difference between censorship and editorship: censorship is carried out by the state, whereas editorship is carried out by the press. Ulstein concludes by asking, rhetorically, how it can be required of the press that it disseminates a narrative based on emotions (Rather than, we may presume, fact). This is more than a bit rich. Dagsavisen for years has shamelessly disseminated a Palestinian narrative so rich in heart-throbbing emotion that the newspaper might as well have been an in-house production of the Palestinakomiteen. When one furthermore takes into account that the editor of Dagsavisen is a self-professed pro-Palestinian and that the newspaper survives on generous handouts from the red-green coalition government, the picture becomes clearer.
Screenshot from Dagsavisen
