Norwegian newspaper
Aftenposten
(
Urban East Norwegian:
[???ftn??p?stn?]
;
transl.
"The Evening Post"
; stylized as
Aftenpo?ten
in the
masthead
) is Norway's largest printed
newspaper
by circulation. It is based in
Oslo
. It sold 211,769 daily copies in 2015 (172,029 printed copies according to University of Bergen)
[2]
and estimated 1.2 million readers.
[3]
It converted from
broadsheet
to
compact
format in March 2005.
[4]
[5]
Aftenposten
'
s online edition is at Aftenposten.no. It is considered a
newspaper of record
for Norway.
Aftenposten
is a
private company
wholly owned by the public company
Schibsted ASA
.
[6]
Norway's second largest newspaper,
VG
, is also owned by Schibsted. Norwegian owners held a 42% of the shares in Schibsted at the end of 2015.
[7]
The paper has around 240 employees.
[8]
Trine Eilertsen
was appointed
editor-in-chief
in 2020.
Aftenposten has correspondents based in Kyiv, Brussels, New York, Moscow and Istanbul (2023).
[9]
History and profile
[
edit
]
Aftenposten
was founded by Christian Schibsted on 14 May 1860
[10]
under the name
Christiania Adresseblad
. The following year, it was renamed
Aftenposten
. Since 1885, the paper has printed two daily editions. A Sunday edition was published until 1919, and was reintroduced in 1990. The Friday-morning edition carries the
A-magasinet
supplement, featuring articles on science, politics, and the arts. In 1886,
Aftenposten
bought a
rotary press
, being the first Norwegian newspaper in this regard.
[11]
Historically,
Aftenposten
labelled itself as "independent,
conservative
",
[10]
most closely aligning their editorial platform with the Norwegian
Conservative Party
. This manifested itself in blunt anticommunism during the interwar era. During World War II,
Aftenposten
, due to its large circulation, was put under the directives of the German occupational authorities, and a Nazi editorial management was imposed. Its editor-in-chief was H. Nesse at that time, and he was arrested and imprisoned in
Grini concentration camp
.
[12]
Aftenposten
is based in Oslo.
[10]
[13]
In the late 1980s, Egil Sundar served as the editor-in-chief and attempted to transform the paper into a nationally distributed newspaper.
[14]
However, he was forced to resign from his post due to his attempt.
[14]
Editions
[
edit
]
In addition to the morning edition,
Aftenposten
published a separate evening edition called
Aften
(previously
Aftenposten Aften
). This edition was published on weekdays and Saturdays until the Sunday morning edition was reintroduced in 1990. The evening edition was only circulated in the central eastern part of Norway, i.e. Oslo and
Akershus
counties. Thus, it focused on news related to this area, in contrast with the morning edition, which focuses on national and international news. The evening edition was converted to tabloid format in 1997. From April 2006, the Thursday edition of
Aften
also included a special edition with news specific to a part of Oslo or Akershus, called
Lokal Aften
("Local Evening"). This edition had eight versions, with each subscriber receiving the version which is most relevant to the area in which he or she lives. In areas not covered by any of the eight versions (for example
Romerike
and
Follo
), the version for central Oslo was distributed. From May 2009,
Aften
was only printed and distributed Tuesday through Thursday. The publication of
Aften
ended on 20 December 2012.
[15]
Aftenposten
started its
online edition
in 1995.
[16]
Controversies
[
edit
]
Aftenposten
opposed the award of the
Nobel Peace Prize
to German pacifist
Carl von Ossietzky
in 1935.
In 1945,
Aftenposten
published an
obituary of Adolf Hitler
in which the 86-year-old Nobel-laureate novelist
Knut Hamsun
referred to Hitler as "a warrior for humankind and a preacher of the gospel of justice for all nations".
[17]
At that time,
Aftenposten
was under the censorship of the German occupying forces.
Historically,
Aftenposten
has not received the same number of lawsuits or as much attention from the
Norwegian Press Complaints Commission
as some of the larger tabloids.
[
citation needed
]
However, there are exceptions. In 2007,
Aftenposten
alleged that
Julia Svetlichnaya
, the last person to interview the murdered Russian national
Alexander Litvinenko
, was a Kremlin agent. London correspondent
Hilde Harbo
admitted having allowed herself to be fed disinformation emanating from the Russian emigrant community without investigating the matter properly.
[18]
Aftenposten
eventually had to apologize and pay Svetlichnaya's legal costs.
In 2011 the newspaper was criticized by
Jon Hustad
for publishing
conspiracy theories
that promoted the false claim that convicted Soviet spy
Arne Treholt
was innocent, based entirely on a book by convicted fraudster
Geir Selvik Malthe-Sørenssen
that was revealed to be based on a fabricated source.
[19]
In a study dated 2016
Aftenposten
was found to contain the
epithet
Negro
(Norwegian:
neger
) at the highest frequency in the period between 1970 and 2014 with 674 references.
[20]
In 2021, the paper was criticized by the youth organization of the
National Association for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgender People
for allegedly publishing articles that promoted
transphobic
conspiracy theories about
trans women
.
[21]
Editorial line
[
edit
]
Aftenposten
had a conservative stance and supported the political party
Høyre
[22]
until the breakdown of party press system in the country.
[6]
Following this, the paper positioned itself as an independent
centre-right
newspaper.
[6]
Language
[
edit
]
From its establishment in 1860 until 1923,
Aftenposten
was published in the common Dano-Norwegian written language used in both Norway and Denmark, which was generally known as Danish in Denmark and as Norwegian in Norway, and which only occasionally included minor differences from each other in vocabulary or idiom. In 1923
Aftenposten
adopted the Norwegian spelling standard of 1907, which mainly replaced the "soft" consonants (e.g. d, b) characteristic of Danish pronunciation (but also used in some Norwegian dialects) with "hard" consonants (e.g. t, p) characteristic of Eastern Central Norwegian pronunciation, but which was otherwise mostly identical with Danish. In 1928
Aftenposten
adopted the most conservative variant of the spelling standard of 1917, which is largely similar to the "moderate Bokmal" or "Riksmal" standard used today.
During the
Norwegian language struggle
from the early 1950s,
Aftenposten
was the main newspaper of the
Riksmal
variety of Norwegian, and maintained close ties to the Riksmal movement's institutions, recognising the
Norwegian Academy for Language and Literature
as the sole authoritative body for regulating the Norwegian language as used by the newspaper. Due to its status as the country's largest and most influential newspaper,
Aftenposten
therefore had a significant influence on the developments that took place during the Norwegian language struggle. The "moderate" or "conservative" Riksmal language used by
Aftenposten
was mainly associated with a conservative stance in Norwegian politics, and was contrasted with the "radical"
Samnorsk
language, an attempt to merge
Bokmal
with
Nynorsk
which was promoted by socialist governments in the 1950s. By 1960 it had become apparent that the Samnorsk attempt had failed, and as a result, Aftenposten's Riksmal standard and the government-promoted Bokmal standard have in the following decades become almost identical as the Bokmal standard has incorporated nearly all of Riksmal. As a consequence,
Aftenposten
decided to describe its language as "Moderate Bokmal" from 2006, and published its own dictionary, based on Riksmal and Moderate Bokmal, but excluding "radical" (i.e. similar to Nynorsk) variants of Bokmal.
The online version of the paper for some years during the early 2000s had an
English
section. To cut costs,
Aftenposten
stopped publishing English-language articles in early November 2008. Archives of past material are still available online.
[23]
Circulation
[
edit
]
Aftenposten
(morning paper)
[
edit
]
Numbers from the Norwegian Media Businesses' Association,
Mediebedriftenes Landsforening
1980?2009:
- 1980: 223,925
- 1981: 227,122
- 1982: 230,205
- 1983: 232,459
- 1984: 233,998
- 1985: 240,600
- 1986: 252,093
- 1987: 260,915
- 1988: 264,469
- 1989: 267,278
- 1990: 265,558
- 1991: 269,278
- 1992: 274,870
- 1993: 278,669
- 1994: 279,965
- 1995: 282,018
- 1996: 283,915
- 1997: 286,163
- 1998: 288,078
- 1999: 284,251
- 2000: 276,429
- 2001: 262,632
- 2002: 263,026
- 2003: 256,639
- 2004: 249,861
- 2005: 252,716
- 2006: 248,503
- 2007: 250,179
- 2008: 247,556
- 2009: 243,188
- 2010: 239,831
- 2011: 235,795
- 2012: 225,981
- 2013: 214,026
- 2014: 221,659
- 2015: 211,769
Aften
(evening paper) - now defunct
[
edit
]
Numbers from the Norwegian Media Businesses' Association,
Mediebedriftenes Landsforening
: 1989?2009:
- 1939: 78,700
- ?
- ?
- ?
- ?
- ?
- ?
- ?
- ?
- 1989: 193,932
- 1990: 192,896
- 1991: 195,022
- 1992: 197,738
- 1993: 198,647
- 1994: 188,544
- 1995: 186,003
- 1996: 188,635
- 1997: 191,269
- 1998: 186,417
- 1999: 180,497
- 2000: 175,783
- 2001: 167,671
- 2002: 163,924
- 2003: 155,366
- 2004: 148,067
- 2005: 141,612
- 2006: 137,141
- 2007: 131,089
- 2008: 124,807
- 2009: 111,566
Aftenposten.no
, online newspaper
[
edit
]
The online newspaper
Aftenposten.no
had an average of 827,000 daily readers in 2015, an increase from 620.000 in 2010.
[24]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Aftenposten AS - Oslo - Roller og kunngjøringer"
. Archived from
the original
on 8 April 2016
. Retrieved
30 March
2016
.
- ^
"medienorge"
.
medienorge
. Retrieved
13 December
2016
.
- ^
"Aftenposten har det høyeste avisopplaget i Norge"
.
Aftenposten
. 3 March 2016.
Archived
from the original on 20 December 2016
. Retrieved
13 December
2016
.
- ^
Ingrid Brekke (4 May 2013).
"Tabloid i form, men ikke i sjel"
.
Aftenposten
(in Norwegian).
Archived
from the original on 16 January 2014
. Retrieved
14 June
2013
.
- ^
"Norway: leading daily's successful switch to compact"
.
Editors Weblog
. 22 March 2005.
Archived
from the original on 4 March 2016
. Retrieved
5 February
2015
.
- ^
a
b
c
Stig A. Nohrstedt; et al. (2000).
"From the Persian Gulf to Kosovo ? War Journalism and Propaganda"
(PDF)
.
European Journal of Communication
.
15
(3).
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on 22 December 2015.
- ^
"Aksjonærer - Schibsted"
.
www.schibsted.com
. Archived from
the original
on 7 November 2017
. Retrieved
29 April
2018
.
- ^
"Aftenposten AS - 890412882 - Oslo - Se Regnskap, Roller og mer"
.
proff.no
. Retrieved
11 April
2023
.
- ^
Njie, Ragnhild Aarø.
"Øst-Europa-korrespondent fast ansatt i Aftenposten"
.
kampanje.com
(in Norwegian Bokmal)
. Retrieved
11 April
2023
.
- ^
a
b
c
Bernard A. Cook (2001).
Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia
. Taylor & Francis. p. 935.
ISBN
978-0-8153-4058-4
.
- ^
Svennik Hoyer
.
"The Political Economy of the Norwegian Press"
(PDF)
.
Scandinavian Political Studies
. Danish Royal Library: 85?141.
- ^
Joachim Joesten (Autumn 1942).
"The Lights Went Out"
.
The Virginia Quarterly Review
.
18
(4): 551.
JSTOR
26448498
.
- ^
"Annual report 2012"
(PDF)
.
Schibsted Media Group
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 24 September 2015
. Retrieved
26 March
2015
.
- ^
a
b
Sigurd Allern (2002).
"Journalistic and Commercial News Values. News Organizations as Patrons of an Institution and Market Actors"
.
Nordicom Review
.
2
(2).
- ^
"Historien sett gjennom Aften-øyne"
.
Aftenposten
. 20 December 2012
. Retrieved
14 October
2019
.
- ^
"Online Journalism Atlas: Norway"
.
Online Journalism
. 25 January 2008
. Retrieved
13 January
2015
.
- ^
Gibbs, Walter (27 February 2009).
"Norwegian Nobel Laureate, Once Shunned, Is Now Celebrated"
.
The New York Times
. p. C1.
ISSN
0362-4331
.
Archived
from the original on 8 December 2014.
[I]n Oslo last week . . . at the National Library was the 7 May 1945, edition of a . . . newspaper whose lead article on Hitler's death was by Knut Hamsun. As most collaborators lay low, preparing alibis, Hamsun wrote, 'He was a warrior, a warrior for mankind, and a prophet of the gospel of justice for all nations'.
- ^
"Svetlichnaja and Litvinenko: Clarifications"
.
Aftenposten
. 9 December 2006. Archived from
the original
on 14 February 2008
. Retrieved
1 February
2009
.
- ^
Hustad, Jon (17 June 2011). "Konspirasjonsteoretikarane".
Dag og tid
.
- ^
Paul Thomas (2016). "
Papa, Am I a Negro?
The Vexed History of the Racial Epithet in Norwegian Print Media (1970?2014)".
Race and Social Problems
.
8
(3): 233.
doi
:
10.1007/s12552-016-9179-4
.
hdl
:
10642/4424
.
S2CID
152211098
.
- ^
Stenslie, Sol.
"Pride er knapt over, før Aftenposten igjen lar en sinna mann spre hysteri og konspirasjonsteorier om transkvinner i idrett"
. Archived from
the original
on 1 November 2021
. Retrieved
17 March
2022
.
- ^
Rolf Werenskjold (2008). "The Dailies in Revolt".
Scandinavian Journal of History
.
33
(4): 417?440.
doi
:
10.1080/03468750802423094
.
S2CID
142265516
.
- ^
"So long, farewell ..."
Aftenposten
. 5 November 2008. Archived from
the original
on 8 December 2008
. Retrieved
20 November
2008
.
- ^
"medienorge"
.
Archived
from the original on 6 April 2016.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Merrill, John C. and Harold A. Fisher.
The world's great dailies: profiles of fifty newspapers
(1980) pp 37?43
External links
[
edit
]
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