"SOMEONE WHO THINKS IT'S DIFFERENT IN NORWAY WILL BE DISAPPOINTED"

By AI-ChatGPT4o-Tome-T.Chr.-Human Synthesis-18 April 202

We all too often blindly trust what we read, listen to on the radio and watch on TV.

By Rainer Prang:

The all-too-often "left-oriented" commentator Frank Rossavik in Aftenposten has made some observations about the media in the United States after Jewish Bari Weiss resigned as debate editor in the New York Times after being bullied by her own colleagues and insulted by hordes on Twitter/Facebook.

Weiss has been vilified as a "Nazi" and "racist" for her objective comments on conditions in American society. According to Frank Rossavik, her resignation will strengthen a widespread and quite correct image of "left-wing American media".

Think about it: Frank Rossavik himself in the former bourgeois newspaper Aftenposten admits that the largest media in the United States are "left-wing", and he writes, among other things, in his column in Aftenposten how one sees that they are "left-wing" in these American national, regional and local media:

"Primarily it appears in the content, but for some also in the news coverage, i.e. in journalists' choice of cases, interview subjects, questions asked and words used."

It is precisely these conditions related to "fake news" and "socially destructive and left-wing journalism" that US President Donald Trump points to, and Trump is not alone in thinking this way in the US.

Frank Rossavik can report that only 41 percent of Americans have trust in major news media, according to a 2019 Gallup poll. It is of course primarily among the Democratic electorate that trust in domestic media is greatest.

Nettavisen's Gunnar Stavrum states that with Bari Weiss' resignation, two of the leading debate editors in what has probably been the world's most renowned newspaper (the New York Times) have resigned from their positions in a short time.

"What both have in common is that they have wanted to publish opinions that conflict with the newspaper's campaign against Donald Trump and for the Black Lives Matter protest movement," writes Stavrum.

Like Frank Rossavik, Gunnar Stavrum points out that When the historic flagship for open, liberal debate is criticized like the New York Times is, it is symptomatic of a larger trend in the United States.

A recent analysis of nine different OECD countries shows that the United States is by far the country with the greatest increase in emotional polarization - a measure of how strongly you dislike.

So to Norwegian conditions and Norwegian newspapers:

You who are awake, can read and write and follow what the Norwegian media focuses on, cannot have avoided having registered where the Norwegian media gets much of their material from, regarding the USA and Donald Trump.

It is perfectly legal to dislike or like Trump, and often emotions are created in us based on what we read and otherwise get conveyed to us through the media.

NRK, TV2 and other major mainstream media in Norway/Western Europe tell us a story. Unfortunately, we all too often blindly trust what we read, listen to on the radio and watch on TV.

Then it turns out time and time again that we are served an agenda that misleads us, and where the sources, for example in the USA, are politically oriented media, with a heavy bias in one direction, namely to the left.

When Fox News or Breitbart in the USA are mentioned in NRK and other MSM in Norway, for example, it is said "...the strongly right-wing online newspaper Breitbart...", but we do not see similar characteristics directed at the New York Times in the direction of "left-wing".

NRK and other MSM consistently fail to ask critical questions about the position of their like-minded people, and like NTB, they cut and paste a lot from media that have "the right values".

Norwegian editors and Norwegian journalists fail to ask themselves whether it is press ethics and morally sustainable to create reports based on "left-wing press" in, for example, the USA because it comes so naturally to Norwegian editorial offices to swallow what comes from there wholeheartedly.

It is clear that it is a democratic problem, not only in the USA, but also in Norway when readers are told "half truths", outright lies and parts of the truth are omitted.

Norwegian journalists should accept that they have lost trust in the population and that this is largely due to bias in many topics where the press is more of a microphone stand for the left's politically correct view of things than referring to facts neutrally.

Furthermore, we see that facts are often turned upside down in some cases, and a picture is painted that does not match reality (cf. Sissel Wold's long-standing Israel coverage for NRK).

One must seek alternative news sources to get a balanced news picture, which compensates for the skewed presentation carried out by Norwegian journalists.

That is precisely why it is a real paradox that we taxpayers in Norway should keep Norwegian newspapers alive by contributing at least 2 billion in press support annually ++ and that we keep NRK alive with 6 billion a year and TV2 with up to 135 million kroner annually for five years in an agreement from 2018.

We are therefore at the mercy of cowardly, spineless politicians who want to be re-elected. You will not be re-elected if you get into trouble with the media.

We are also at the mercy of campaign journalism of the worst kind, where the editorial staff finely sorts out who to interview, how the issues will be presented, who to criticize and who to praise, and as Frank Rossavik describes it regarding the US media, this is also about "left-wing thinking" in Norwegian editorial staff.

As the figures below show, Norwegian journalists have extremely great sympathy for the parties furthest to the left, compared to other voters. You don't have to look far, watch many news stories, listen to a lot of radio before you find "tendentious coverage", propaganda and issues picked to market the ideologies of the political parties the journalists are closest to. I repeat to the boring: "This is a democratic problem!"

The reason that democracy is weakened by this type of journalism we see Norwegian media engaging in is that the whole truth is rarely or never presented, and then there is a saying in good Norwegian "we are being led astray" and we all too often elect politicians that the media themselves want to create an image of as good for us.

From the Media Survey 2019 we can see what Norwegian journalists would have voted for, if there were parliamentary elections:

Red 12%, SV 21.1%, Ap 22.3% and MDG 13.3%.