(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
The story decade by decade.
1950 century
Keywords for the 50s are NATO, Joseph Raymond McCarty and Einar Gerhardsen.
A bunch of frustrated socialists blast all reason and form the cooperative Orientering with writer, journalist and editor Sigurd Evensmo in the lead. Orientering, based in Akersgata, is the newspaper for the very strong opinions: “Orientering – always against the bloc policy ", as it is strikingly called. The magazine must be read, but many do not dare to admit it. They prefer to have it sent home wrapped. Orientering is in the 50's a free university that educates knowledgeable troublemakers. Among the best students in the class is the drama boy Finn Rudolf Gustavsen. It becomes clear to Haakon Lie Easter 1958 then Orientering and the Socialist Student Team get a majority of Aps's parliamentary representatives to sign a call for nuclear weapons to be stored in Germany. Haakon Lie is cursed. A youth trip to East Germany in 1959 causes the cup to run over to Lie: The boys on tour are excluded from the Labor Party.
Finn Rudolf Gustavsen becomes editor of Orientering from January 1959. Well hold Orientering to the People's House. There's something big going on. The fourteen-day newspaper was to become a weekly newspaper. The domestic substance is expanding and sharper. The May 1 issue under the heading “No to nuclear weapons. Yes, to socialism ”contains contributions from the Norwegian spiritual elite: Johan Borgen, Aksel Sandemose, Alf Prøysen, Haldis Moren Vesaas, Odd Eidem, Hartvig Sætra…
There is something big going on. Orientering publishes its first book "Instead of the Atomic Bomb" which sells in 15.000 copies. There's something big going on. In the rest of Norway, there are plenty of political parties that have started newspapers. Orientering goes upstream – and becomes the newspaper that makes up the party.
But that's another decade.
1960 century
Key words for the 60s are the fall of the one-party state, the Vietnam war and youth rebellion.
On September 25, 1960, the National Assembly of the Labor Party states:
“Members of the Norwegian Labor Party cannot participate in that activity group Orientering operates and at the same time maintains its membership in the Norwegian Labor Party ”.
Finn Gustavsen is the editor of Orientering from 1959 to 1961. In his spare time he decides to make a party. With a little help from Torolv Solheim, Per Maurseth, Sigbjørn Hølmebakk and Guttorm Gjessing then, of course. Among others. Knut Løfsnes is party leader for the whole decade.
They call it the Socialist People's Party. Only SF, among friends. The proposals of the Reformed Labor Party, the New Party, the Theocratic Socialist People's Party and the Norwegian Humanist Party receive less support. The Academic Socialist Elite Party is nobody thinking about. "It's just nice to get all the fools in one party", writes Hamar Arbeiderblad and SF will be in a tipping position in the Storting. Orientering is the mother of the party, a few thousand voters are the father. Including the popular author Johan Borgen:
"I do not fit in as a party politician, but now I can vote, for the first time in twenty years", as the recent Orienteringwriter Borgen puts it. Evensmo takes over as editor again. The 60s are the decade then Orientering undergoes the same crisis as the rest of the Norwegian press 20 years later: Are we a party or are we a newspaper? Or a party newspaper? One tries to make compromises. Gustavsen wants the newspaper to be a political body and not an "intellectual sandbox". Then it was SF or Orientering who overthrew the country's government with the Kings Bay case in 1963? Not good to say, but the Labor Party will never be the same again. Gustavsen is down to 56, 5 kilos.
In 1965, Kjell Cordtsen takes over as editor. The country's best writers write in the newspaper. Johan Borgen, Jens Bjørneboe, Georg Johannessen, Johan Borgen, Sigurd Evensmo, Johan Borgen, Helge Krog… And young people. The radicals of the radicals. So radical that in 1968 they try to put the newspaper under the party for good. It started a few years earlier:
The fight against the EEC begins in the autumn of 1961. "No to the sale of Norway", as philosopher Arild Haaland puts it. The sale of Findus to Swiss Neslé in 1963 aroused indignation among frozen food enthusiasts. No wonder, originally Swedish as it was and would remain at the end of the century.
Among other things, the sale of Findus leads to youth uprisings all over Europe, from Prague to Paris to Blindern. Real sixty-eight do not eat Swedish fish sticks. Adolescents are manic-depressive and sexually frustrated. They want freedom and fun. The SUF children break up with mother SF in 1969. Then we have it going. But it's another decade.
1970 century
Key words for the 70s are quarrels, quarrels and disagreements.
There's something big going on. Or small, a little depending on how you see it. SF is struggling with its youth. AKP is founded in 1973, but that is Klassekampen's newspaper history. It's going well Orientering. In 20 years, the circulation has gone from zero to almost 20.000 in the mid-70s. Kjell Cordtsen is a good editor. The EEC, the EC or the EU, if you will, is now the newspaper's enemy. In retrospect, it is said that the sixty-eight uprising came to Norway only in 1972. It is of course wrong. Then you would call it the seventy-two uprising and write books like "Real seventy-two do not eat fish and chips".
1972 is a key year for Orientering. 1972 is the beginning of the end. The intoxication of victory makes the radicals soft and all the abbreviations, SV, SF, NKP, AIK and what they are now all called, decide to cooperate, quarrel a bit and withdraw. Kjell Cordtsen thanks himself in 1975 and it is clear for one of the first female editors in Norwegian national newspaper history, Audgunn Oltedal. Obviously a good troublemaker there too. Orientering is left to nostalgia, New Time challenges the future. SF becomes SV and SV becomes Ny Tid and vice versa. Orientering is finally a proper party newspaper. And they go after power: the country's secret services. With permanent journalists who want to run a newspaper professionally. And tough.
The 70s is the decade when New Time – in which busy Orientering engages in very critical journalism. In the 70's, it is considered worse to expose illegalities than to commit them.
The Liste case and the Loran C case are the major cases in Norwegian press history in the 1970s. New Time is at the center. The circulation is not as large as below Orientering, but it's going around now.
In 1979, Steinar Hansson takes over the editor's chair. Something big is going on.
1980 century
Key words for the 80s are the environment, yapping time and the fall of the wall.
Everyone who is interested in cars and boats reads Aftenposten in the 80s. Everyone who is interested in peace and the environment reads Ny Tid. That is just how it is. Not many, admittedly, but the newspaper Ny Tid has never been bigger, stronger and angrier. Circulation: 16. Locality: Greenland in Oslo's backyard. Steinar Hansson will create a broad, professional newspaper. 000 pages. Foreign affairs, politics and culture. Tor-Bomann Larsen is a regular artist. Øystein Rottem reviews literature. Jan Kjærstad and stuff. Finn Skårderud reviews films.
But the cathedral is now one thing, the stock market another thing. In 1981, Kåre Isaachsen Willoch forms a pure Conservative government. Will be expanded in 1983 with the Center Party and the Christian People's Party. New Conservative government in 1985. Hell is loose. The damage has occurred. The Norwegian economy will never be the same again. Even in New Age, they are starting to think about making money. It must go wrong.
The 80s are the decade when the press begins the secession from the parties. Ny Tid also wants to, but does not quite get it. The party is tightening its grip. After three years with Ingolf Håkon Teigene as editor, the board, or the party leadership, if you will, can in 1986 reveal that the new editor of the left – wing weekly newspaper will either be Finn Gustavsen or Erik Solheim. 60-year-old Gustavsen is preferred, even though he sits on Oslo City Council for SV. "New Time – how busy Gustavsen is", writes Aftenposten in a portrait interview with the new editor, which starts as follows:
"- But otherwise? he says with his crooked, shy smile:
- Otherwise I wonder who I am! ”
Gustavsen shows here that he represents the intellectual avant-garde. A few years later, "who am I" and "where are we going" will be the contemporary mantra: Socialism in Norwegian. Ny Tid tries to live up to the times, and in 1989 hires Bernt Eggen as Gustavsen's heir. Not a party man, exactly, but a journalist. Even a writer. The world is preoccupied with money, but New Time does not understand it. Ny Tid understands socialism, but it is now completely incomprehensible to the world. The wall falls in Berlin – and in Greenland. Avisa is looking forward to a new decade.
1990 century
Key words for the 90s are the EU, the fall of Brundtland and Kosovo.
The 90s are the decade when Ny Tid is a major consumer of editors. And profiles. Should Ny Tid be an environmental newspaper, a foreign newspaper, a cultural newspaper, a magazine, an internet newspaper, a news newspaper or a commentary? Yes please. Avisa's board has got the taste for "headhunting". In 1991, Ny Tid hired 37-year-old Gunnar Ringheim, an award-winning journalist with experience from both NRK and Dagbladet. SV spits in a million kroner before Ringheim has sat down in the easy chair. Ringheim gets more money, but he is very fond of colors and expensive regular columnists. The bank smiles all the way from Greenland.
In 1998, the debt was repaid. Do you think so? Ny Tid is ready for new investment and final professionalisation. 5.000 subscribers. SV is gradually selling down and is no longer the majority owner. Fresh layout, new young journalists and new editor: Anne Hege Simonsen, journalist, social anthropologist and African connoisseur takes over from Runar I. Malkenes.
We are nearing the happy end. Had it not been for the fact that all debt was not repaid anyway. Just almost. Still, the newspaper manages to get more subscribers, publish some 28-page newspapers, attract good writers, crack the Labor Party for good and get some attention in the general public – once in a while. But it is another and far more promising decade.
