The Tundra Tabloids has recently cast its sights on the self labeled “small giant” in Scandanavian broadcasting, Norway’s state tv, NRK. The anti-Israel antimosity within it’s news department is more pronounced than that of Sweden’s (SVT) and of Finland’s (YLE) state broadcasting organizations, and that’s saying a lot.
So, in light of the recent spike in high profile instances of ridiculous journalistic tomfoolery by a member of the NRK organization (now known as NRK-GATE), the TT would like to show a couple of other examples of NRK “activist journalism”, which has long become an institutionalized organizational policy, and their response to the criticism. KGS
At NRK, activism trumps truth.
1.) Norway’s Most Violent Anti-Semitic Riots Ever: It has now also emerged that one of the out-of-town participants in the pro-Israeli demonstration of 8 January 2009 was maimed for life. Jon Gunnar Aksnes related that he had been beaten with a flagpole, and subsequently by another gang with truncheons. When he went back to his bus, bleeding, a reporter for the notoriously anti-Israeli state television NRK saw that he was hurt and had the camera turned on him. When he told them who had attacked him, the reporter rapidly had the camera turned away.
2.) 2001 – Norwegian Branch takes on Anti-Israel Media – As the violent Palestinian uprising continued over recent months, members of the ICEJ Branch in Norway became alarmed at the increasingly bold and brutal antiIsrael bias in the Norwegian media described as “the worst in Europe.” Under the leadership of our Norwegian representative, Leif Wellerop, the ICEJ decided to speak out publicly against this imbalanced reporting by organising a demonstration of both Christian and Jewish groups on June 16 outside the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) building in Oslo.
[…]
As a rule, Norwegians are not the sort to stage protests. But for many, the situation had become intolerable. The mobilisation against Israel of NRK – the main, governmentsponsored Norwegian TV and radio channel – was closely documented by Odd Sverre Hove, the editor of the newspaper Dagen, read by many Christians throughout the country. His review of NRK coverage over several months exposed a daily media slant heavily in favour of the Arab side, which Hove published in a series of articles in his paper. When NRK and other Norwegian media refused to acknowledge or address this disparity, hundreds of Norwegians decided it was time to take to the streets.
In what was the first protest of its kind outside the state broadcasting facilities in Oslo, some 800 Christians and Jews gathered on a bright, clear Saturday on the steps of the NRK broadcast building to voice their displeasure. “We came home victorious,” reports Wellerop, who spoke at the rally along with Hove and Kaare Kristiansen, an elder statesman in Norway who resigned his position on the Nobel Peace Prize Committee when it awarded the prize to PLO chief Yasser Arafat in 1994. An official with the Israeli Embassy in Oslo was also on hand to thank the participants on behalf of the State of Israel.
The head of the news department for NRK Television was also present observing the demonstration. Wellerop was able to speak with her directly about his concerns, but she continued to maintain that Norwegian TV has nothing to be ashamed of.
[…]
In a more recent development, ICEJ-Norway filed a complaint with the special review board that monitors journalists according to professional standards. The complaint involved an interview by an NRK-TV reporter of Israel’s deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior, who is the former Chief Rabbi of Norway and Denmark. Rabbi Melchior was asked to join in the complaint, which he quickly did, citing his own objections to the unfair treatment he received during a prime time, nationwide broadcast. Needless to say, Wellerop reports that he senses a real “nervousness” within NRK that they will be formally reprimanded through this process.
