is apparently not shared by the (center-left) former Swedish government, which not only certified the Foundation as charitable but granted $30,000 in government funding and support to Nya Dagbladet in 2021
Disclaimer: I previously knew nothing about the Swedish press; I still know almost nothing. I just thought this seemed weird and spent about 20 minutes looking into it.
Some context which I think would be useful to evaluate this claim.
It appears that in Sweden the government subsidizes newspapers in the form of “press support.” From reading the Wikipedia page on press support, which is mostly actually about Norway not Sweden, it seems like support does not really constitute a government endorsement, but rather is provided to a lot of different newspapers and is mostly to ensure a healthy press. It’s possible this differs between Norway and Sweden though.
The $30,000 figure comes from the expo.se piece, which says:
Nya Dagbladet applied to the Swedish Press and Broadcasting Authority for public funding in 2020, but was turned down. The platform reacted angrily to the decision, and published a series of articles where specific officials at the agency were named and pictured. The publications caused distress among employees at the agency who felt menaced and pressured, as Dagens Nyheter reported at the time. The following year, Nya Dagbladet made another application for public funding; this time they were successful and received about $30,000 in various grants.
The article linked (archive here) Google translates the article as referring to the Norwegian press. I thought that was pretty weird, but from googling the Swedish (Myndigheten för press, radio och tv), I think the Google translate is wrong and it is indeed about the Swedish press (here is the website of the Swedish press agency). The expo.se piece might seem to imply that the government officials may have been intimidated into making the later grant, but I think that’s a bit less clear if press support is supposed to be widely distributed to newspapers in any case.
Regardless, to me it does not seem like the reception of this grant really indicates that the organization is not pro-Nazi, and certainly it doesn’t seem to imply endorsement of that claim from the Swedish government, at least as far as I can tell. A good understanding would require a better understanding of the Swedish press support system, which I neither I or presumably the vast majority of readers of this comment have.
The Swedish press support is for quite obvious reasons designed to be politically impartial, which means that one can’t draw conclusions about a publications ideology from the fact that it receives press support. This is an issue that is sometimes debated in Sweden because blatantly antidemocratic media may be entitled to the money.
Disclaimer: I previously knew nothing about the Swedish press; I still know almost nothing. I just thought this seemed weird and spent about 20 minutes looking into it.
Some context which I think would be useful to evaluate this claim.
It appears that in Sweden the government subsidizes newspapers in the form of “press support.” From reading the Wikipedia page on press support, which is mostly actually about Norway not Sweden, it seems like support does not really constitute a government endorsement, but rather is provided to a lot of different newspapers and is mostly to ensure a healthy press. It’s possible this differs between Norway and Sweden though.
The $30,000 figure comes from the expo.se piece, which says:
The article linked (archive here) Google translates the article as referring to the Norwegian press. I thought that was pretty weird, but from googling the Swedish (Myndigheten för press, radio och tv), I think the Google translate is wrong and it is indeed about the Swedish press (here is the website of the Swedish press agency). The expo.se piece might seem to imply that the government officials may have been intimidated into making the later grant, but I think that’s a bit less clear if press support is supposed to be widely distributed to newspapers in any case.
Regardless, to me it does not seem like the reception of this grant really indicates that the organization is not pro-Nazi, and certainly it doesn’t seem to imply endorsement of that claim from the Swedish government, at least as far as I can tell. A good understanding would require a better understanding of the Swedish press support system, which I neither I or presumably the vast majority of readers of this comment have.
The Swedish press support is for quite obvious reasons designed to be politically impartial, which means that one can’t draw conclusions about a publications ideology from the fact that it receives press support. This is an issue that is sometimes debated in Sweden because blatantly antidemocratic media may be entitled to the money.
Thank you, my prior was it would be something along this line but it needed someone to check