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Åkesson interview wasn’t unfair: TV watchdog

Sweden's broadcasting regulator has rejected complaints that the country's top TV chat show host was guilty of bias in a controversial interview with Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson in March.

Published: 8 June 2015 17:42 CEST
Åkesson interview wasn't unfair: TV watchdog
Jimmie Åkesson during the controversial interview. Photo: TT

The scrutiny committee for Sweden’s authority for radio and TV on Monday said that it did not think that the interview with the politician was contrary to the requirements for objectivity and impartiality, SVT reported.

Broadcast on March 27th on Swedish public broadcaster SVT, the interview with the nationalist leader resulted in hundreds of complaints both in Sweden and across the border in Norway, where the programme was also broadcast.

In Sweden complaints started coming in even before the interview was aired, with many criticizing the broadcaster on social media for giving the controversial far-right leader a forum on Norwegian journalist Fredrik Skavlan’s popular show.

But once the programme had been broadcast, most viewers focussed on how the interview was conducted, arguing that Åkesson, who went on sick leave last October, had been treated too harshly by Skavlan.

During the interview Skavlan repeatedly asked Åkesson about controversial, and often racist, statements made in the past by Sweden Democrats.

A blogger for Sweden's GP newspaper titled his entry on the interview: “Skavlan was a pitbull”.

The interview also touched upon the fact that the nationalist leader had been on sick leave since October 2014 and is still on anti-depressants.

“There's obviously a reason why others don't choose to talk about this. It's because you're scared, as a political leader, to be perceived as weak. 'How are you supposed to return to your party leader job now, you who are taking antidepressants? You, who are so weak, how are you going to manage?',” Åkesson told Skavlan.

“But I think that for the sake of both the voters and myself, I have to be open about this,” he added.

Other viewers praised the broadcaster for this approach, arguing that Jimmie Åkesson needed to be grilled for his far-right views.

Speaking at the time, SVT argued that it had a role to “comment on and question the world”.

Defending its decision on Monday, the broadcasting authority said: “A host must have a critical perspective and ask questions of provocative character in order to clarify the position of the person being interviewed.” 

The Sweden Democrats are the third largest party in Sweden, after scoring 12.9 percent of the vote in the country's last general election in September 2014.

For members

INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won’t spark a government crisis

The Local's editor Emma Löfgren rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 18 May 2024 09:22 CEST
Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won't spark a government crisis

Hej,

News that the Sweden Democrats are operating a far-right troll factory – which among other things the party uses to smear political opponents as well as its supposed allies – has caused probably the biggest rift yet between them and the three other parties that make up Sweden’s ruling coalition.

The leaders of the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals all strongly criticised the Sweden Democrats’ blatant violation of the so-called “respect clause” in their Tidö collaboration agreement – the clause that states that the four parties should speak respectfully of each other in the media.

But after crisis talks held on Thursday, the conflict appears to be dying down.

The Sweden Democrats hit out strongly at the TV4 Kalla Fakta documentary where the troll factory was revealed, calling it a smear campaign and disinformation, but simultaneously went as far as to confirm that they do run anonymous social media accounts for which they refused to apologise.

They did say sorry to the Tidö parties for including them in the smear campaigns, and promised to remove some of the posts that had offended the other three parties, plus reassign a couple of members of staff to other duties until they’ve been given training on the Tidö “respect clause”.

But that doesn’t remove the fact that they vowed to continue the anonymous social media accounts whose existence they had prior to the documentary consistently denied, or the fact that some of the social media posts shared not only vague anti-immigration content, but white power propaganda.

The Liberals took the row the furthest, with Liberal leader Johan Pehrson describing people in his party as skitförbannade – pissed off as hell. He said ahead of the crisis meeting that they would demand that the Sweden Democrats cease all anonymous posting, which the latter rejected.

The party had two choices: walk out of the government collaboration and possibly spark a snap election, or walk back its strong words ahead of the meeting and wait for it to blow over.

They chose a kind of middle way, and called for an inquiry to be launched into banning political parties from operating anonymous social media accounts. The Social Democrats immediately accused the Liberals of trying to “bury the issue in an inquiry” – a classic Swedish political method of indecisive conflict avoidance which the Social Democrats themselves are well familiar with.

The Christian Democrats and Moderates both said that the Sweden Democrats had accepted their criticism and welcomed the party’s reshuffling of staff within its communications department, adding that it still had to prove its commitment to the Tidö agreement going forward.

So why isn’t this causing a bigger government crisis?

We asked Evelyn Jones, a politics reporter for the Dagens Nyheter daily, to come on the Sweden in Focus podcast to explain it to us:

“The Sweden Democrats are the biggest party in this coalition, even though they’re not part of the government. So the government really needs them. It’s hard for them to just stop cooperating with the Sweden Democrats,” she said.

“The cooperation between the government parties and the Sweden Democrats has been going pretty smoothly since the last election – more smoothly than a lot of people thought. This is probably the biggest crisis so far, but how big it is, is hard to say.”

You can listen to the full interview with her and the rest of the Sweden in Focus podcast here. 

In other news

If you are a descendant of a Sweden-born person and would like to find out more about them, there are ways to do that. I wrote this week about how to research your Swedish ancestry.

That guide was prompted by my interview with the chair of a community history group in a small parish in north-central Sweden, which has tried to get to the bottom of rumours that US mega star Taylor Swift’s ancestors hail from their village. I had so much fun writing this article.

The EU elections will be held on June 9th, but advance voting begins next week in Sweden. And poll cards are already being sent out, so if you’re eligible to vote you should receive yours soon.

Sweden’s consumer price index fell to 3.9 percent in April, below 4.0 percent for the first time in two years, reinforcing predictions that the central bank will keep lowering interest rates.

Sweden’s four-party government bloc has broken with the other parties in a parliamentary committee on public service broadcasting, adding what the opposition complains are “radically changed” proposals. How shocking are they?

Many people move to Sweden because of their partner’s career. Perhaps you’re one of these so-called “trailing spouses”. I’ve been asking readers in this situation how they’re settling in, and will have an article for you next week. There’s still time to answer our survey to share your experience.

Thanks for reading.

Have a good weekend,

Emma

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.

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