Norwegian Press by Knut Moland November 24th 2009
Joshua criticizes the Norwegian press today, especially Dagbladet and VG. Myself I want to say that for the most part many of the press has conducted themselves well, and written and spoken mainly and to the point. The local media has been great, and NRK and TV2 has also been great.Aftenposten has been well for the most part. They had a story that was a total miss. They wrote that the guys had been fired from the Norwegian army. This is wrong, and Aftenposten knows that, but they won’t give up their source. That’s ok, but maybe they should check their sources before they “dive in”.
VG og Dagbladet have had many good stories and many not so good. The speculations around alleged bank robbery plans were the worst. Absolute miss, just imagination with no hold what so ever. Poor journalism. The “sensations” around the training video are also way out there. If French can prove later that the tape was stolen, it’s pure theft. Simple and unworthy. That the journalists have bribed east and west in Kisangani is no secret, and was probably necessary. The problem is of course that now everyone in Kisangani thinks that Norwegians are loaded with money, so they can just keep demanding more. Pictures etc. has been bought, I have no doubt about that. Down there nothing is free! With that being said Kisangani has not been an easy workplace for the journalists. Some have handled it well, other have fallen on their faces. My bet is that this case will become curriculum on the journalist school later on.
In this case journalists have met more obstacles than you can imagine. Some have handled it better than others. Some, I’m sure have had better editors than others. Personally I would say that if you come across stolen pictures, papers or other materials and use them in a situation that causes problems for people in a process where there is a death penalty involved, it is not enough to say “we just protect our sources”. I would think a normal amount of decency when using sources could be expected.
Knut Moland, 24th November 2009
