Strike threatens newspapers, TV2

Norway’s national journalists’ union NJ (Norsk Journalistlag) has threatened to call a strike from Saturday after its negotiators failed to reach agreement with the media employers’ organization Mediebedriftenes Landsforening (MBL). TV2 and newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) are among media outlets where journalists and other NJ members may be ordered to walk off the job. The [...]

Royals pursue ‘historic’ complaint

Norway’s royal family has filed what’s being called an “historic” complaint against Norwegian magazine Se og Hør, in an effort to clarify whether the magazine violated “good press standards” and invaded the family’s privacy. It’s the first time the royal family collectively has filed a formal complaint over how they’ve been treated in the press. [...]

New NRK boss gets down to work

Thor Gjermund Eriksen was ceremoniously handed a symbolic oversized key to his new office as chief of Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) on Monday and had a busy first day on the job, one of the most powerful in Norway. As he made the rounds of media interviews and met the NRK troops, he admitted he faced [...]

Ruling may put social media at risk

A court ruling in Oslo that ordered a Norwegian blogger to remove his posts about the alleged reasons for the break-up of a high-profile celebrity couple seems to have broken new legal ground. Media and legal experts think it may put active social media users at risk for getting sued themselves. An Oslo city court [...]

Couple’s break-up set off media storm

Tone Damli Aaberge, a 24-year-old Norwegian singer from Sogndal, has received more publicity than she probably could have imagined in the past week, because of perceived public interest over her broken engagement to actor Aksel Hennie. All the hype in the celebrity press led to a certain degree of media soul-searching over the weekend. The [...]

Behn ‘complicates’ royal complaint

A stinging complaint launched by Norway’s Royal Palace against celebrity magazine Se og Hør last week seemed to lose some of its credibility this week, when news broke that the king and queen’s own son-in-law, Ari Behn, entertained at a Se og Hør staff luncheon and got paid by the magazine to do so. Behn’s [...]

Media mourns editor’s death

Tributes to one of Norway’s sharpest, most fearless and creatively irreverent media leaders have rolled in since news broke last week that Kåre Valebrokk had died, not unexpectedly, at the age of 72. What follows is a highly personal one, because anyone who ever worked for the man can hardly be objective about losing him. [...]

Royals launch media complaint

Norway’s royal family has launched a major complaint against one of the country’s biggest magazines that’s best known for its coverage of celebrities and the royals themselves. A palace spokeswoman announced that members of the royal family have had enough of what they consider to be unwarranted intrusion into what’s left of their private lives. [...]

NRK’s ‘slow TV’ won more viewers

Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) made television history with its record-breaking “minute-by-minute” coverage of a coastal voyage on a Hurtigruten vessel two summers ago. It’s since made similar “slow TV” shows, and the latest coverage of a trip on Norway’s northernmost train line was another big hit over the holidays. More than a million Norwegians, or roughly [...]

New year ushers in new NRK boss

As millions of Norwegians were tuning in to a traditional holiday line-up on state broadcaster NRK, a 46-year-old man who didn’t launch his media career until 1995 is getting ready to take over as leader of the huge public media house. As Thor Gjermund Eriksen said himself on the day his appointment was announced, “everyone [...]

More local papers charge for online content

The days of free online news seem to be drawing to a close, at least among local media outlets in Norway. After years of declining circulation for paper editions, with readers switching over to online editions where stories have been accessible for free, the papers have had enough. In December, newspaper Sandfjords Blad will lock [...]

TV2 celebrates 20 years

Norway’s national commercial television station TV2 launched several days of celebrations over the weekend, to mark its first 20 years on the air. The Bergen-based channel is widely credited with dramatically changing the nature of television in Norway. TV2 started up on September 5, 1992 and finally gave some serious competition to state-financed Norwegian Broadcasting [...]

Media workers face huge cuts

More uncertainty was gripping employees of Norwegian media firm Schibsted on Thursday as it planned to slash jobs, consolidate some editorial operations among several of its newspapers and even move its flagship Aftenposten into the offices of another Schibsted paper in Oslo, Verdens Gang (VG). It’s the latest in a string of cost-cutting that reflects both [...]

Media camp rises outside courthouse

Norwegian and foreign media organizations have been setting up camp outside the Oslo City Courthouse, as they prepare to cover the trial of the local terrorist who attacked Norway’s government and Labour Party last year. Many Norwegians are already tired of all the media coverage, even before the trial begins, while debate continues over media [...]

Media planted pranks on April 1st

Norwegian media outlets did their best to fool readers and listeners on April Fools’ Day, even though April 1st fell on the Palm Sunday holiday this year. The annual publication of pranks poked fun at everything from government health campaigns to frustratingly slow transport improvements. Local media have a long tradition of planting false stories [...]

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