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Discussion on SR and SVT should take place in the appropriate facilities
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This is a cultural article which is part of Aftonbladet’s opinion journalism.
Photo: The image is a montage.
SD’s long-term goal is rather to destroy the public service than to take control of it, writes Karin Pettersson.
Last week announced The moderates who did not want constitutional protection for public service.
After that, about five seconds passed before the Minister of Justice Morgan johansson He pulled out the fascist card and warned that the moderates want it as in Hungary and Poland, where the public service has become a propaganda body for the government.
The moderates, in turn, responded by pretending they didn’t know that the SVT and SR discussion is becoming one of the central battlegrounds in the culture war.
Then there is Deposit. But here it is: no, Sweden is not becoming like Hungary, and Morgan Johansson’s argument is destructive.
Yes, there are threats to public service that the moderates don’t want to fake for political and populist reasons, in their perpetual farting by the Swedish Democrats.
The combination of these false attitudes becomes a high-stakes political dance, dangerously disconnected from reality.
The discussion about public service is important on many levels. But to make it understandable, something needs to be said about the terrain in which we are all groping:
Free journalism is today a target of authoritarian movements. Politicians like Triumph, Orbán, Åkesson and Twitter You don’t see any intrinsic value in an independent review of power. Rather, they seek control and direct communication channels with individuals and voters. And yes, in Hungary and Poland, governments have taken direct control of the state-funded media.
This interacts with a media landscape in which journalism has been in deep crisis for many years. The business models that the media relied on in the postwar period no longer work. Ad money disappears for Facebook and Google. There are still niche outlets that can cash in directly from your target group: business newspapers, morning papers for the urban middle class, newsletters for those particularly interested. Media with broad target groups (evening newspapers, local and regional media) have dwindling resources and many are finding it increasingly difficult to reach.
For authoritarian movements, everything is a perfect storm: social media highlights their message, propaganda is easy to bounce off, traditional journalism is getting weaker and weaker.
Also: in the old public, the media set the agenda and said what was important. In the new one, we are governed by a completely different logic. Social media highlights anger and hatred, and the reality, even Google search results, can be easily manipulated by those with the knowledge and resources.
These trends intertwine and overlap. For authoritarian movements, everything is a perfect storm: social media highlights their message, propaganda is easy to show off, traditional journalism is weakening. Boat.
Is within In this context, the battle for public service must be understood. The context determines and changes everything.
Social Democrats, in turn, lack the idea of a media policy beyond continued support for public service and current support from the press.
From a Swedish democratic point of view, it is now on fire for a Hungarian-inspired culture war where the target is Swedish television and radio. The arguments have the support of their voters, who are the only group that today has little confidence in SVT and SR. For SD, the long-term goal is to destroy the public service, rather than take its control.
Social Democrats, in turn, lack the idea of a media policy beyond continued support for public service and current support from the press. If they decide, today’s development will continue, which means business journalism will be weaker, public service increasingly bloated and dominant. This in itself is a dangerous situation, but too difficult to handle.
Finally then the moderates, in whose party body two tendencies now unite. One, we can call it Hanif Balibranch, is driven by a general disregard for journalists and wants a public service fight to attract SD voters “critical of the media.”
The other leg, we can call it the classic MUF phalanx, wants a certainly independent service, but much less public because they hate the State on principle. They think that media diversity is important. But they do not see that the world has changed, and that their proposals in the current scenario are much more dangerous than before.
It gets weird when you can’t discuss public service without the f-word being immediately dismissed as a final comment.
The big risk right now is not that Ulf Kristersson makes a Viktor Orbán and replaces the CEO of SVT Hanna Stjärne with Linus bylund, without a political agreement being reached after a change of government in which M reconciles with KD and SD to drastically limit allocations for public service, without thinking about how the gap behind journalism that later disappears should be filled. Where SD’s ambition to weaken independent journalism clashes with the neoliberals in the MUF phalanx and the power players in the party leadership. It would not turn Sweden into Poland or Hungary, but it would significantly weaken our democracy.
I’m alone an embracing fan of public service. The idea is more important than ever, and the practical function. But I think that the discussion must be based on the right premises. Utility companies don’t do everything right. They are not in themselves a guarantor of democracy, but one of several important pillars. More is needed, such as vibrant private media, and especially dynamic local and regional journalism. How will this be accomplished? No one seems to have a clue about this.
Finally: it gets weird when you can’t discuss public service without the f-word immediately being dismissed as a stop comment. It is also, it must be said, a murky idea that threats to public service should be constitutionalized. Those who want to keep SVT, SR and UR strong and independent companies should be able to take home the discussion of why it matters with the voters. For democratic reasons.
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