Dismayed with the local coverage of their recent bread blockade, Norwegian farmers tried to block regional Sunnmörsposten from distributing today's newspaper.
Around 3am this morning farmers tried to block the entrances to Sunnmörsposten's printing plant with their tractors.
"We are blocking the newspaper distribution to get a mouthpiece towards consumers in regard to how the farming industry is in need of much better conditions if we are to be able to continue producing food in Norway," Odd Einar Fjörtoft, a spokesman for the local group of farmers told NRK. Fjörtoft said they were very disappointed the newspaper did not cover their big demonstration on Tuesday (a claim Sunnmörsposten's editor-in-chief contests).
The Local describes Tuesday's national farmer's strike thus:
Norwegian farmers went on strike on Tuesday morning, as they sought to keep bread off supermarket shelves by blocking entrances to mills across the country in protest against the collapse of agricultural policy negotiations at the weekend.
However, The National Farmer's Association said they had neither been informed of, nor supported, the local newspaper blockade against Sunnmörsposten.
Understandably, the latter blockade has been met with much derision and ridicule - and has been yet another reminder that not all PR is good PR.
How sucessful was the farmers bread blocade, and how long did it last?
Posted by: Martin Coughlan | August 19, 2012 at 02:24 PM
Not very long, some hours I think. In terms of getting media coverage they were pretty successful though, but as I said I'm not convinced it was very clever PR no matter the amount of coverage
Posted by: Kristine | August 19, 2012 at 10:43 PM