Year: 2005

This is odd. Two days ago, Thomas Hartman started out as new press secretary for Barbro Holmberg, the Swedish Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy. Apparently Hartman has been publishing a controversial blog in which he has been posting some very harsch comments about media.

Västerbottens-Kuriren wrote yesterday that Hartman had written, among other things, that people should “stop reading the crap”.

– I think it looks like there are small chances he will do a good job as press secretary. As press secretary you are supposed to work for openness and smooth contacts between media and the minister, said Stig Fredrikson, chairman of the Publicists’ Club in a comment to VK.

When I searched for Hartman’s blog last evening it looked like it had been closed down. It could be (since VK made the usual mistake of not writing the blog URL in the article) that the blog in question is actually to be found somewhere else, but I find that highly unlikely.

In my view it looks like his entire blog has been deleted because the statements he made does not sit well in his new job. So much for openness and transparency from the government…

Footnote: Some of the headlines from Hartman’s blog can be found at Blogwalk. Unfortunately there are no cached versions of the blog in Google.

Update: VK writes that Hartman closed down his blog after VK had contacted Anna Helsén, Press Secretary to Prime Minister.

I can think of many reasons why traditional media would want to start blogs. Dialogue does not seem to be the primary reason. I have examined 42 blogs from 17 Swedish newspapers and found that:

– 6 out of 10 newspapers do not allow comments on their blogs.
– Only 53% of the newspapers have RSS feeds for their blogs.
– Almost 3 out of 10 don’t have permalinks, something at least I think is a minimum requirement for a blog. Without permalinks a blog is probably nothing more than an online diary.

Only three blogs have both comments, RSS and permalinks enabled, so hats off to Dagens Industri (Diego), Norra Västerbotten and Sydsvenskan for a good technical understanding of the blogosphere.

Elements of participatory journalism are uncommon. I managed to find 6 blogs from 5 papers that included external writers in some form. Norrbottens-Kuriren is maybe the most positive example where the paper invites one blogger per week to write.

Since I have read in some of the comments from this weekend’s Swedish blog forum that some of the papers are considering to implement comments in the near future, this summary might need an update. But until then, here are the numbers (percentages are for individual papers, not for each blog).

Here is a list of 42 active or temporary blogs from 17 Swedish papers.

Media – Blog name:
Aftonbladet – Lotta Gröning
Aftonbladet – Tomas Ros’ hockey blog
Aftonbladet – Helle Klein
Aftonbladet – Robert Laul’s football blog
Aftonbladet – Fredrik Virtanen
Barometern – Blog (readers’ diary)
Dagens Industri – Diego.se
Dagens Nyheter – The Irak blog
Dagens Nyheter – Thomas Hall (German election)
Dagens Nyheter – Wifstrand’s elite handball blog
Dagens Nyheter – World Cup blog
Dalademokraten – Robert Sundberg’s media blog
Expressen – Anders Nunstedt (music)
Expressen – Cecilia Hagen
Expressen – The culture blog
Expressen – Lars Lindström
Expressen – Linda Skugge
Expressen – Olof Lundh (football)
Expressen – PM Nilsson
Expressen – The hockey blog
Expressen – Poker blog
Expressen – The NHL blog
Falu-Kuriren – Pralinbloggen
GT – Jimmy Fredriksson
GT – Kai Martin
Kvällsposten – Maria Rydhagen
Kvällsposten – Peter J Olsson
Mora Tidning – Carl Johan Bergman (sport)
Mora Tidning – Hockey blog
Nerikes Allehanda – NA blogs from Book Fair
Nerikes Allehanda – Eva’s blog
Nerikes Allehanda – English football
Nerikes Allehanda – Sylvia’s sisters
Norra Västerbotten – Sofia OO right now
Norrbottens-Kuriren – Blog of the week
Smålands-Posten – Camilla Carnmo (culture)
Smålands-Posten – Helena Söderlundh (entertainment)
Smålands-Posten – Tuva Klinthäll
Smålands-Posten – Stefan Nilsson (motor)
Sydsvenskan – Culture blog
Ystads Allehanda – Ulf & Lollo
Örnsköldsviks Allehanda – Ulf Eklund (sport)

And finally, it’s not a blog just because you say so.

Footnote: The blogs I have listed are blogs hosted on newspapers’ web sites. They do not need to be active. Personal journalist blogs are not included. Content has not been reviewed. Some blogs do not list their RSS feeds on the site, but they can be found via a search on Bloglines for example.

Norwegian daily Dagens Næringsliv lost a case against freelancer and art critic Jan Kokkin who argued that the newspaper had published more than 500 of his articles online during the last decade without giving him compensation, in violation with the contract between the two parties. The paper was sentenced to pay 60,000 NOK in damages and 250,000 for legal expenses.

As an effect of the outcome of the case, DN’s Chief Editor Amund Djuve told Aftenposten that the paper closes its online archives. The sentence will be appealed to the Supreme Court.

Update: A similar case from a US court from earlier this month.

Speaking of blogs vs. news sites. This is a screen dump of Aftonbladet.se today. I’ve managed to fill the entire screen with ads (if I scroll up, naturally I will see headlines to articles). Add to this view some interstitials, pop-ups etc etc and compare it with any blog out there. It’s like the perfect promotion for RSS, don’t you think?

The Swedish defense has problems with getting its new logo approved. A 300 year old coat of arms is not changed without proper procedures. Oh, and getting the support from the people who will be using it.

Staffan Dopping, head of information at the Swedish defense, said:

– You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette.

This “fine” old French proverb is often attributed to Lenin. Either way, if a person uttered that expression in a media training session I would definitely tell him/her not to.

Where do you turn to get news today? Traditional media, blogs or both?

To borrow a line from JD Lasica, journalists are “trained to think of [themselves] as a special elite who report, filter and interpret the news for lay people”. But more and more often I find that I rely equally as much on blogs as a collective filter to bring me the news that I want. Example: Henrik Torstensson writes that management guru Peter Drucker has died at the age of 95 and links to a message from Claremont Graduate University and an obituary in Financial Times. Drucker has been an icon in business and management for decades, but still no (?) Swedish or Norwegian media have reported on his demise (in Denmark most media have). Apparently, blogs can satisfy my information needs at least as well as traditional media can.