Affärsvärlden is asking for two million to review what the editor-in-chief calls “the green planned economy”. At Northvolt, people ask themselves how to approach interviews with the newspaper.
In two editorials in Affärsvärlden, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief Peter Benson criticizes the media’s coverage of the green transition and announces that the newspaper is looking for sponsors for an effort to review what he calls “the green planned economy” and draws comparisons with the Soviet Union and China under Mao Tsetung.
Two million kroner Affärsvärlden hopes to bring in via sponsors and invests the same amount from its own pocket to put a team of about four reporters and freelancers with cutting-edge knowledge on the task. The goal is to “influence the financial and political decisions in a direction that benefits Sweden as a whole and not just certain special interests”.
Peter Benson believes that journalistic scrutiny of political and economic decisions related to climate change is no more strange than other political and economic decisions.
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– I am not critical of the green transition per se. Climate change is real. On the other hand, I think I suspect, and there are many wise people who seem to share that view, that under the green flag there are quite a lot of efforts and measures that are not effective. If the purpose is to deal with environmental problems or climate threats, they are not achieved in a good way through all the measures on the table, says Peter Benson.
– We are looking for sponsors who agree to our mission statement and see value in this material being freely available and not reserved for our subscribers.
You call it the “green planned economy”, it’s not neutral, is it?
– It is not, I agree with that. It is a stylistically provocative approach. But there is also a deep seriousness in the word planned economy. That politicians around a table decide that we should reach the number X by year Y, at any cost, it is a model for building society that very often has ended very badly. Community resources are being mobilized on a massive scale to bring this about, and it needs to be reviewed.
In one of his columns, Peter Benson singles out Norrbottens-Kuriren’s, Piteå-Tidningen’s, Norrländska Socialdemokraten’s and Norran’s joint newspaper “Framtidsfabriken”, which monitors the rapid growth of green industry in the region, which the Journalist told about. He calls it the “hallelujah investment Framtidsfabriken financed by special interests” and that Affärsvärlden should do the same thing as the cheerleaders behind Framtidsfabriken, but “on the contrary”. (Framtidsfabriken’s main partners are Luleå Technical University, Sparbanken Nord and the Skelleftepress Foundation, which was Norran’s main owner until 2019 when the newspaper was sold to NTM.)
– That’s probably a rather sharp way of phrasing it. It is a short part of a longer column and the semantics are certainly not perfect. What I was trying to get across is simply that these kinds of special efforts are being made around these issues. What we do is not new. The difference is that we do not a priori have an attitude that it is only good.
You don’t think that people can get the impression that you believe that Framtidsfabriken reflects special interests and that you should make a similar investment, but reflect other special interests?
– No, then I think you read a bit too much into it. I saw it more as a little funny example. There is a lot of journalism around these issues, but there is often an explicit or implicit positive tone.
Have you got any sponsors yet?
– We are having promising discussions.
With who?
– We cannot go ahead with that now and we may not go ahead with it in the future either. We shall see. We haven’t really landed on that yet.
You don’t see a risk that it could be perceived that you are attending to the affairs of your – possibly anonymous – sponsors?
– We run the readers’ errands. We write about things that are true, relevant and interesting and this area meets those criteria with flying colours. The sponsors will have no insight or opportunity to influence what we write. There is no question of anything else. Then Affärsvärlden has a fairly long tradition of opinion-driven features, where politicians and commentators clearly express their opinion, and my view is that it is essentially a fairly well-functioning order. If someone disagrees, so be it, says Peter Benson.
Part of the image of the green boom in northern Sweden is the battery company Northvolt. When the Journalist contacts Northvolt’s communications manager Anders Thor, he says that it will be difficult to relate to Affärsvärlden’s new direction.
– We are very used to being scrutinized by the media, but the question is, is it worthwhile for us to do interviews or give news to a newspaper that openly says that they are looking for external funds to write negative articles about us? Do we need to step in with two million ourselves to achieve a more neutral approach? says Anders Thor.
Anders Thor states that he sees several problems with Affärsvärlden’s set-up:
– Will Affärsvärlden ensure that it is not Northvolt’s competitors who sponsor the negative articles? Otherwise, this will really just be a tool for our competitors to pay for negative articles about us in the Swedish business press.
– Secondly, there are also competitors regarding electricity prices. The Scandinavian Policy Institute, which Affärsvärlden has connections with, is sponsored by Scanian companies that want to keep electricity prices down in Scania. Will such companies also be able to sponsor negative articles being written about the industries in the north?
– The third question is whether we will find out which companies pay for the negative articles to be written… Yes, I must say that it feels strange to come up with these questions. It is a strange kind of journalism that Affärsvärlden wants to focus on, says Anders Thor.
The links between Affärsvärlden and the Scandinavian Policy Institute in Scania, which Anders Thor highlights, consist of the researchers Magnus Henrekson and Christian Sandström. Henrekson sits on Stiftelsen Affärsvärlden’s board but is also the founder of the Scandinavian Policy Institute. Christian Sandström has joined the editorial board and will become a “tone-setting voice” in the newspaper, at the same time he has taken on assignments from the institute and participates in the Scandinavian Policy Institute’s report series “The Nordic steel projects – savior or cuckoo?” which are critical of the investment in fossil-free steel in Norrland.
Affärsvärlden’s editor-in-chief Peter Benson dismisses Northvolt’s concerns:
– We have not decided that anything specific is bad in advance. We will also highlight things that work well. Quite often it can be about conflicts of interest where it is relevant to hear the best arguments of all relevant sides, says Peter Benson.
At Northvolt, people ask themselves why they would apply for interviews with Affärsvärlden. What do you think about it?
– We cannot force anyone to be open about anything. Each actor can decide that for themselves. After all, we feel that the important thing is that what we write is valid and that if we are wrong on any point, that it will also come out.
