(NB! This is a collection case with references to some of the articles in the weekly magazine Ny Tid from August 2011.)

12.08.11:

VG admits wrong

The country's largest newspaper found the ideological model of the murder victims. Then it presented Fjordman's claims as a fact.

BY NILS GJERSTAD

Fjordman. "The turning point came when Egyptian neighbors celebrated at 11 / 9."

That's how it sounded the title in VG 5. August, when the newspaper got the first interview with Fjordman (Peder Jensen).

Also in the preamble is the Islamic critic's claims that an Egyptian neighbor in 2001 celebrated the terror of eating cake, as an undeniable fact:

"The intense hatred of Muslims seriously took root when Peder Jensen (36), aka" Fjordman ", saw Egyptians in Cairo celebrating the 11 terrorist campaign. September 2001 with cake. »

Tore Bjørgo, professor of political science at the Police College, is critical of the Fjordman look in VG:

- The VG journalist should have done more research on Fjordman with a critical eye and confronted Fjordman harder. This is a classic media mistake, when you come across an interview object that is a scoop to talk about. It's easy to be so happy that you forget to be a critical journalist and end up like a microphone stand. The Fjordman interview was a very kind interview in relation to the circumstances, says Bjørgo.

VG now admits that the angle presented Fjordman's claims as facts.

- These are Fjordman's experiences of the events, and the title should have taken this into account. Consequently, it is not precise enough, admits Torry Pedersen, editor-in-chief and CEO of VG.

- In an ideal world where you have more time available, I agree with Bjørgo that VG should ask Fjordman more critical questions. But one has to look at the coverage overall. In the same newspaper, Anders Giæver also had a very critical one comment about Fjordman. It is easier to criticize an interview than it is to find Fjordman and get him to speak, says Pedersen. ■

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26.08.11:

Islamist opponents defined as "voluntary organization"

TV 2 helps you… and SIAN

Since April, "Stop the Islamization of Norway" has been presented as a "voluntary organization" on TV 2's website. SIAN received a special discount and paid NOK 14,50 a day to spread large advertisements with "Yes to freedom – no to Islam".

BY CARIMA TIRILLSDOTTIR HEINESEN

Advertising. "Norway's most accessible marketplace."

This is the motto of «TV 2-torget», the advertising pages of Norway's largest private TV channel. Ny Tid can now reveal that these websites have also been very easily accessible …….

(Read the rest of the case online here…)

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09.08.11:

Criticizes Kolberg's war games

Election scientist Frank Aarebrot is critical of NRK Dagsrevyens Martin Kolberg interview, in which he will "go to war against extremists" and "fight radical Islam".

BY RAFIA ZAHEER

(Read the entire case online here.)

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12.08.11:

Continuing the fight against "multiculturalism"

The class struggle editor does not regret the attacks against "multiculturalism" before the terrorist attack. He now urges the communications officer in the Antiracist Center to step down, based on a post in his own newspaper.

BY RAFIA ZAHEER rafia@nytid.no

NOTICE: Computer programmer Ole Jørgen Anfindsen, after the terror, takes self-criticism for the way he has spoken to immigrants in Norway. On April 23, 2010, in a major Klassekampen interview, he explained why he thought he was a racist and proud of it. The Anti-Racist Center is among those who before July 22 criticized that no critical questions were asked to Anfindsen and his like-minded in this or other interviews. FACTS: Class fighting

Extreme top. The reason for the terrorist attack in Norway on July 22, when 77 people were killed, was according to the murderous 32-year-old his hatred of what he called "multiculturalism".

Over the past three weeks, the media has spent a lot of space on the accused's opinions on the internet: the pseudonym Fjordman (alias Peder Jensen), Hans Rustad (editor of Document, where the accused wrote) and Ole Jørgen Anfindsen (author and editor of the Islam-critical website Honest Thinking).

Common to all these men is that for several years they have expressed strong dissatisfaction with what they call "multiculturalism" – something that is often understood as having a negative view of increased diversity and immigration in Norway. Senior researcher Cora Alexa Døving at the Holocaust Center points out, however, that it is very unclear what the self-proclaimed opponents of "multiculturalism" really mean:

- The word multiculturalism has in recent years been used to criticize integration policy. But this is a concept that to a small degree denotes integration measures. A multicultural society consists of different cultures, while the word "multiculturalism" refers to a political strategy that organizes different cultures in the form of special treatment. The little we have seen of multiculturalism in Norwegian politics is very pragmatic, and is about grants for mother tongue education and religious communities as well as support for some cultural associations, says Døving.

She points out that there has also been openness to increased diversity among many politicians, but that "this in itself is not enough to call Norway's integration policy multiculturalist.

Many of those who debate this topic, including Ole Jørgen Anfindsen, make it difficult for my readers to understand what it is really about. ”

Massive coverage

But the defining problems do not prevent the harsh criticism from critics of increased diversity in society. The discovery, which has received a lot of attention over the last couple of weeks due to the intellectual collaboration with Fjordman and which has been enthusiastically read by the murder victim, has also before the terrorism received large spreads and interviews in some newspapers.

The database of the Media Archive shows that the disputed debater has received a total of 139 articles or interviews in print during the Class struggle in recent years, including the launch interview and discussion of last year's self-published book. Anfindsen has received as much publicity in the Class Fight as in Aftenposten, Dagbladet, VG, NTB, Dagens Næringsliv and Dagsavisen together.

The class struggle is also the newspaper in Norway where Rustad and Document have gained the most space. And this is where the concept of "multiculturalism" and the attack on it have been played out over the last couple of years. 209 times the newspaper has used the term, twice as much as the second daily newspaper on the list – the two issues of Aftenposten. In contrast, the multicultural newspaper Utrop and the global weekly magazine Ny Tid, which try to prioritize diversity Norway, have hardly used the word "multiculturalism" in recent years.

In the Class Fight, which has the party Red as the main owner, it was on leadership position February 12 that the newspaper supported the new proposals of the right-wing conservatives towards multicultural societies:

«European Heads of State – German Chancellor Angela Merkel, The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron and the President of France Nicolas Sarkozy – have in turn stepped out and declared "multiculturalism" as a failure and failure. We are also not supporters of 'multiculturalism'… »wrote editor-in-chief Bjørgulv Braanen.

- Do you still mean the same thing, Braanen?

– Yes, I am still against multiculturalism, says the editor of Ny Tid.

Braanen will not be interviewed by telephone by Ny Tid's journalist, but will respond in writing. He demands that everything he sends be printed in Ny Tid and writes: "Must be quoted in its entirety." In return, Braanen refuses to answer whether he is a "monoculturalist", or what he dislikes about today's diversity in Norway.

The editor writes that he defines "multiculturalism" as "an ideology in which different cultures live side by side with different special rights, without the ambition of a unifying community across cultures and religions".

Responded earlier

But such a claim is contrary to information provided by the researcher at the Holocaust Center. Without commenting on Braan's statements, Cora Døving says of the profiled "multicultural critics":

- By claiming that society is the result of multiculturalism, opponents give the impression that the great cultural and social upheavals in Norway are the result of a special type of policy, and not the result of migration and economic and cultural differences. At the same time, they describe a multicultural society as a parallel society without common values. The multicultural is a utopia as a community, it is claimed. But there are several examples of key values ​​such as democracy and the rule of law being common in a society that also accepts cultural diversity, says Døving.

Those frequent in the Classroom interviews with extreme debaters, who openly declare that they are racists and against diversity, have also raised reactions before the terror. In April last year, the leader of the Antiracist Center wroteKari Helene Partapuoli:

«The class match has on April 23 a two-page interview with Ole Jørgen Anfindsen, as in his book The "suicide paradigm" advocates racial ideology. It is easy to think that extremism like this should also be mentioned. The actual consequence, however, is that Anfindsen is built up as a figure of significance, a figure who can – and in someone's ears should – be listened to. Book sales are going up, and he will find more and more invitations to panel debates in his inbox…. Naturally, Anfindsen does not think that he will win very many of Klassekampen's core readers over to his point of view. What he knows is that interviews like this play an important role in placing him in relation to the public. "

- What are your thoughts on the fact that your newspaper has given a voice to racial theorists and anti-Islamists, Braanen?

"The class struggle has long followed an editorial line where we have wanted to confront anti-Muslim voices in public. It also means a long way to let them in the columns… It is my modest opinion that the Class Struggle over a long period of time has played an important, not to say leading role in warning and arguing against the emerging racist neo-fascism in Norway, "writes Braanen.

Ask Steen to step down

The editor refers to statements from social anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen to legitimize his position. But just a few weeks before he was in fierce debate with the Antiracist Center, after the Class Fight editor wrote on June 7 that Dagbladet's commentator Marte Michelet has a "stupid and short-thinking attitude".

COVER: The controversial Islam critic Bruce Bawer's two books were presented on 15 August 2009 as the main article in Klassekampen's book review, with this illustration. FAX MILE: Class struggles

Communications Manager at the Anti-Racist Center, Rune Berglund Steen, wrote in a debate post in the Class Fight on June 24: "The risk with Braan's approach is that one gives authority to every alarmist prophet, ultimately to Tybring-Gjedde…. This is very much a battle of ideas, where facts and figures are just one of several tools. Why Braanen seems to want to fight the battle with fewer tools than is available, is unclear to me. "

- What do you think about your approach being described as not being so different from the media-insulted Tybring-Gjedde?

"If Rune Berglund Steen in the Anti-Racist Center seriously believes that the undersigned stands for the same as FRP's Christian Tybring-Gjedde, he should soon consider changing jobs," writes Braanen. Ny Tid did not manage to obtain a response from Berglund Steen before printing.

(This is an excerpt from Ny Tid's weekly magazine 14.08.2011. Read the whole thing by buying Ny Tid in newspaper retailers all over the country, or by subscribing to Ny Tid - click here. Subscribers receive previous editions free of charge as PDF.)

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19.08.11:

Want new media debate

It may be right to give racists slit space, the journalism lecturer points out. But the Anti-Racist Center warns against accepting extremist issues.

BY RAFIA ZAHEER rafia@nytid.no

Debate. The debate rolls after Ny Tid last week (12.08.) Presented the statistics on which media before 22 July gave the most column space to Norway's most extreme immigration debaters, and how these were presented.

The class struggle editor wrote a comment in his newspaper on Tuesday, August 16, asking him to "let go of this kind of damning and manipulative journalism". He also wrote that the case is "fraudulent" (here one Class struggle-affiliated blog with multiple attacks on New Age journalism).

The review shows that both Hans Rustad in Document.no and Ole Jørgen Anfindsen in Honest Thinking has been mentioned, and received greater media coverage, than most Norwegian professors and academics in Norway. They have been mentioned hundreds of times, a trend that started after the Muhammad cartoon controversy in 2006. Anfindsen's name is to be found more in Ny Tid than in both DN and Dagsavisen, and as much as in VG – corrected for publication frequency. At the top, however, is the Class Struggle.

Social anthropologist and associate professor of journalism at Oslo University College, Anne Hege Simonsen, points out that giving yourself self-proclaimed racists and Islamist haters should not be a problem:

- When asked whether radical statements should be given a lot of space or not, there is no definitive answer. But it must be possible to justify it journalistically, Simonsen says to Ny Tid.

Simonsen believes it has not been detrimental that the Class struggle has devoted much space to that kind of ideology.

- The class struggle has an established critical position in the media landscape. They mostly have critical readers. I do not consider it so dangerous if they let go of opinion leaders who, for example, promote Islamophobia. It would have been more problematic if VG or NRK did it, she emphasizes.

But she points out that it is important to correct actual mistakes.

- An example is proposals such as "all terrorists are Muslims", or Islamophobes who believe Europe is exposed to an invasion. It is important that you confront mistakes with facts, she says.

Cultural diversity

Communications Manager at the Anti-Racist Center, Rune Berglund Steen, wrote June 24 a post with critical questions about the Immigration Coverage of the Class Fight. Braanen wrote last week that if Steen "believes that the undersigned stands for the same as Frps Christian Tybring-Gjedde, he should consider switching jobs as soon as possible". Stone's comment:

- Braanen chooses here an unnecessary sharpening of what has been a factual debate about how best to meet the rhetoric of a person like Tybring-Gjedde. The starting point is that Braanen and I are more or less on the same side in the debate, but have different ideas about how the debate can best be conducted, Steen tells Ny Tid.

Nor does he believe that any interview with the right-wing extremist should be avoided:

- We do not have a broad enough overview of Klassekampen's coverage of Anfindsen and dokument.no to say anything qualified about this, but it is obvious that much of the coverage has been about confronting such attitudes. We would nevertheless point out that the risk of such extensive coverage as, for example, Anfindsen has received in the Norwegian media, is obviously a normalization of extreme positions, even if it was not intended. Do we really need a new discussion about racial hygiene – is that where we are as a society in 2011, Steen asks.

Defending Michelet

Communications Manager Rune Berglund Steen Defender Marte Michelet's much-publicized personal commentary in Dagbladet, which the editor of Class Fight's June 7 wrote, presented a "stupid and short-thinking attitude".

- Michelet's comment was a showdown with how to talk about Muslims and others with a minority background, and it will perhaps stand as the strongest anti-racist chronicle this decade. The startling thing that happened was that the editor of Klassekampen chose to go along with Michelet, and in rather harsh words. He pointed the finger at Michelet and demanded facts, as if the immigration debate is not also about attitudes, values, human views, Steen comments.

Warns against conceptual confusion

Thomas Hylland Eriksen thinks it is important to be skeptical of the "multicultural" debate.

BY RAFIA ZAHEER

Diversity. "Multiculturalism" has become a popular curse word both before and after July 22. However, it is unclear what different actors are putting into the concept. Social anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen points out that the concept of "cultural diversity" is preferable.

- When Ny Tid uses the word multiculturalism sparingly, it is completely in line with the prevailing terminology in European research. As the word has both ideological undertones and connotations in the direction of segregation and plural societies – something you almost have to be Christian Tybring-Gjedde to think Norway is – "multiculturalism" does not suit Norwegian and most European societies, says Hylland Eriksen.

Braanen last week referred to Hylland Eriksen's post. But the professor says:

- It turned out to be very difficult to come up with examples when the word "sneaky Islamization" was proposed, and the same will be the case here. Cultural diversity is usually a more comprehensive concept, he confirms to Ny Tid.

Rune Berglund Steen is also skeptical of all the multicultural debates:

- Today's multicultural debate is characterized by the fact that right-wing populist bloggers have created a false enemy image: "The multiculturalists", who allegedly fight for us to live in separate booths without any kind of community. If these extreme multiculturalists exist in Norway, I have never met them, says Steen.

- Braanen operates with a definition of multiculturalism that is in line with that of the right-wing populists, and he carries out the same empty exercise of declaring it dead. When right-wing populists use this strategy, it is natural to discredit anyone who speaks in favor of a multicultural society. The question is: Why does the editor of Klassekampen choose to build on what is first and foremost a right-wing populist strategy to undermine his opponents? Can he at least tell me who these extreme multiculturalists are, who among us argues for a segregated society? It is also especially when the editor of Klassekampen talks Merkel, Cameron and Sarkozy by mouth, Steen writes.

Ny Tids journalist had certain challenges in getting a conversation with Braanen. Last week, he defined "multiculturalism" as "an ideology in which different cultures live side by side with different privileges, without ambitions for a cohesive community."

Ny Tid's journalist sent him the questions: "What do you really put in" special rights "? And who is claiming these privileges? ” Braanen writes back:

"The problem is that you do not understand what the discussion about multiculturalism is about. When you are not willing to explain what my view is, but instead hit me hard with Sarkozy, Cameron and Merkel, you do not take the discussions seriously. Then it will only be manipulation and demagoguery, »writes the Klassekampen editor to Ny Tid's journalist.

(NB! November 2011: In recent weeks, three of Ny Tid's journalists have tried to get a response from Klassekampen's editor to the criticism, without success.)