Calling out the next stops towards recession central
A blogging-journalist hero for Ada Lovelace Day

Newspaper Death in Norway

Two of Norway's local newspapers will close next week, it was announced today.

A few hours ago Norwegian media group A-pressen, who among other media assets owns 50 of the countries regional- and local newspapers, announced Moss Dagblad, a local newspaper, and Halden Dagblad, a local freesheet, will publish their last editions this month (remarkably, the Norwegian edition of Wikipedia was updated immediately for both the former and latter paper).

Moss Dagblad is the number two newspaper in Moss and has roughly 28,000 readers. The closures come in a Norwegian county, Östfold, where it was feared A-pressen's once expected acquisition of Mecom-owned Edda Media would result in closures and job losses due to media ownership regulations (For one, Edda owns the most read newspaper in Moss: Moss Avis). Now it turns out we get some the same results even without A-pressen succeeding with its efforts to scoop up Edda Media, which must be a huge disappointment.

It is also ironic that A-pressen, a media company often portrayed as more bevolent owner than Mecom, has the Labour Union (LO) and partly privatised Telenor (the Norwegian equivalent of BT) as its two majority owners. However, the executive in charge of local media in A-pressen, told Journalisten closing the 97 year old Moss Dagblad was not a result of the financial crisis but of years of losses which, despite cost cutting measures such as having its publishing days reduced to only three a week, had made the paper dependent on financial support from its owners to survive.

I'm also reminded of the CEO of Verdens Gang (VG), Torry Pedersen's, assertion that the good financial times Norway enjoyed until disaster hit the world economy has masked the structural challenges newspapers face. Norway prides itself of being one of the most newspaper reading countries in the world, but the financial crisis will be a test of how sustainable its record number of newspapers really is...

Comments

Kristine, a small correction of a simple fact: Torry Pedersen is the CEO of VG. Bernt Olufsen is editor-in-chief.

Thanks for for spotting that, now corrected. I've obviously got my mind in too many places today: currently writing on Ada Lovelace Day, arranging a debate and factchecking a Mother's Day column for US, while I could have been enoying the last 700 pages of the book I'm reading in the sun outside...

I'm tempted to ask what book you're reading. I have a thing for too thick books myself.

Well, it's not that exceptional but I find I need books I can just loose myself in once in a while, not too heavy, as being freelance means I have a tendency to feel guilty if I'm not working all of the time.

"World without end", is Ken Follet's second historical novel. These are the only two of Follett's books I've read as I'm not too big on crime and like the historical setting/the details on the history of building cathedrals. I saw a review on Facebook describe this book as the crack cocaine of books and addictive in the way you know it's lacking in quality but you just can't stop yourself from dancing to ABBAs "Dancing Queen":-)Of really think books that offers more to chew on, I like Neal Stephenson's triology The Baroque Cylce + Cryptonomicon, but he does loose himself in details from time to time.

Oj, dette var jeg ikke klar over! Jeg foretrekker norsk, men skjønte jo litt. Kanskje du kan lage en norsk og en engelsk tekst (som betyr det samme så klart!)

:)

Junes: hvis du følger lenkene i denne posten er alle untatt den om VG til norske artikler. www.journalisten.no har skrevet mye om denne saken.

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