Category: Other

Gudmundson story far from over

The story about journalist Per Gudmundson’s blog is far from over. Tobias Billström of (m) the Moderate Party just now asked (interpellation) Leif Pagrotsky, Minister for Education and Culture:

> if he thought that freedom of speech does not include employees of a public service company?

> if he thinks that individual journalists employed in public service companies can not express views in public, even if they are not in direct connection to the work that they do as employees at SVT?

Second blogger to bite the dust

Dagens Nyheter today writes that liberal debater Johnny Munkhammar will lose his job for blogging about topics that are not in line with the vision of his employer the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv).

– He hasn’t always had the same opinion as Svenskt Näringsliv, and it can be hard to separate when he speaks as a private person and when he speaks for us. Our mission is to represent the views of our member companies, says Inger Holmström, head of communications at Svenskt Näringsliv.

Just about a week ago we had the incident with journalist Per Gudmundson who was told to quit blogging and now this. What does that tell us about blogging in Sweden? I’m not sure yet. But clearly some bloggers should be nervous. Is your blog officially approved by your organization or is it clearly a private matter? If you don’t have a clear answer to this question you should arrange for a meeting with your boss today.

The article is not online yet. Munkhammar says he will keep his blog.

Footnote: Bloggers saw this coming last week.

Att:ention Wired readers – no need to read

Pontus Schultz reads Wired. Especially the October issue.

Today I got my hands on the newest magazine on the Swedish market, Att:ention, a magazine about “business and pleasure” from Bonnier publishing house Bonzoo. Att:ention is media entrepreneur Pontus Schultz’ new baby, so to speak (no, not the one he pushes around in a pram…). The magazine seems to be a salute to entrepreneurs, talents and free agents and is a nice mish mash of career advice, design, and portraits of young (good looking, of course) people who “made it”. No-one is old, no-one is ugly. Throw in some soft porn, some gays and a bunch of former McKinsey consultants and you sort of see where this is heading. It’s the dotcom boom all over again minus the hype, it is “brand you” and free agents and the talents rule. No, I am being a bit mean, it is really quite interesting and I’m looking forward to read more of the articles, but what’s up with all these ex-McKinseys being mentioned over and over again? Wouldn’t it be a bit more interesting to talk to someone who manages to stay at McKinsey?

Anywho. The magazine starts and ends with two terrible Wired rip-offs. First, it is the “wired/tired/expired” thing that gets not-so-reinvented. Hmm, so Tivo is hot, I thought that was so last year? The other thing from Wired is the Jargon Watch that gets duplicated and 2 out of the 4 “new words” in Att:ention are from Wired in October (bluespamming and click fraud). Even the reference to Gizmodo is in there. We don’t want a “Wired meets Café”, but two months later. Give me something I haven’t read before. Not the Pinc House that I read about in Residence some, what, 12 months ago?

If we disregard those small mishaps, I haven’t had time to read that many articles yet so maybe I’m jumping the gun here. I think Att:ention has potential. This is a magazine that I could very well imagine reading and I think that Schultz often has a good view of what’s hot or not. But a magazine dedicated to entrepreneurship, new ideas and great thinkers can not survive by copying others.

Update: There’s some good reading in here, for example the interview with Jesper Kärrbrink and the article about the Swedish music industry.