Talk:Aftonbladet/Archive 1

Archive 1

"liberisation of Sweden in 1830"

What does "liberisation of Sweden in 1830" mean? ThereIsNoSteve 20:07, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It's liberalisation (or modernisation). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.50.107.52 (talk) 03:31, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Newsmill

Newsmill is not a reliable source since it's for self published articles. Anyone signing up can write at Newsmill, there are not facts checks. // Liftarn (talk) 18:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Slarre

Could Slarre please stop inserting his pet paragraph and respect WP:OR? None of the sources claims Aftonbladet is anti-semitic, only Slarre does. The first time it might have been a mistake and we could have assumed good faith, but it now looks increasingly like Slarre is intentionally being dishonest. His latest edit summary was just as dishonest, as he claimed the paragraph had removed without discussion. Many of us have discussed it, nobody has yet presented a single source claiming Aftonbladet is anti-semitic. Slarre has presented a few articles he himself thinks are anti-semitic, but that remains his personal opinion.Jeppiz (talk) 22:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

See my reply above. /Slarre (talk) 21:27, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Antisemitism

Based on the latest controversy, some editors seem to want to claim that the newspaper has a history of antisemitism. If such serious claims are to be made, they need to be sourced. The current paragraph is sourced by an article claiming that Aftonbladet is not antisemitic. I wonder if those restoring it even know Swedish. If they do, I recommend them to read the article. If they don't, then they have no reason restoring sources they do not understand. That is not to say that we cannot be critical of Aftonbladet. We can be as critical as we want, as long as the critique we write is based on sources, not on our interpretations of articles.Jeppiz (talk) 22:45, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

To clarify myself a bit: Aftonbladet is, in my opinion and in the opinion of most Swedish speakers, a rather bad newspaper even though it sells a lot. Its reputation is a bit like The Sun in the UK or New York Post in the US. Unlike high-brow Swedish newspapers such as Dagens Nyheter or Svenska Dagbladet, they don't have subscribers and thus have to sell by have sensationalist content. Its credibility is very very low, and you can hardly open it without finding a big "SCANDAL"-this or "SCANDAL"-that. I'm a Finn myself, and if I had a euro for every time they've been writing slight insults or outright nonsense about Finland I'd be a rich man. Though that's nothing compared to what they write about Norway, it's even worse for Denmark, there are regular insults on the French, the Eastern Europeans, the US. So it's not in any way an anti-Israeli newspaper, it's a newspaper that sells by finding big "scandals" and by appealing to the lowest and most sensationalist in people. On a side-note, the source used in the paragraph, Newsmill, is very similar. While Aftonbladet is a sensationalist and left-wing paper, Newsmill is a sensationalist and right-wing Internet-publication. Politics aside, neither of them is very credible and both are extremly biased in their view of the world. I'll be happy to see a long section containing criticism of Aftonbladet, and there is really A LOT to criticise, but we have to be able to be fair in our criticism and not stoop to the same level.Jeppiz (talk) 01:17, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Are you kidding me? You removed a whole section that was perfectly NPOV and contained several sources – not just the one in Newsmill – and mostly articles in Aftonbladet itself for that part. Removing a whole section that contains perfectly sourced and NPOV text without previous discussion amounts to vandalism.

You're right that the article on Newsmill does not state that AB is an "antisemitic newspaper", and no one here has said otherwise. However, the opinion article clearly argues (which is the point of it), and I quote directly from the article: "... it appears that since the 1980s they [Aftonbladet] sometimes appear both blind and deaf in front of the expressions of antisemitism, which sometimes makes it "skid" in a way that few other newspapers do" ("... det verkar som att man sedan 1980-talet ibland gör sig både blind och döv inför antisemitismens uttryck, vilket medför att man då och då slirar på ett sätt som få andra tidningar".) The article then gives several independent examples of this. But that is really out of the point here, since this article in no way currently states that Aftonbladet is an "antisemitic newspaper".

By the way, saying that Newsmill is a "right-wing Internet-publication" is a bit silly. It's a website, owned by the Bonnier group, dedicated to publishing opinion articles from all of the politcal spectrum (for example, the Swedish radical islamist writer Mohamed Omar is one of their regular columnists). /Slarre (talk) 09:11, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Come on now, Slarre. I realize you dislike Aftonbladet and is thrilled at the opportunity to attack them, but that is no reason to put WP:NPOV aside. This is a sensationalist newspaper that regularly publishes cr**py and ill-founded stories on everything. You try to twist it into making it look like an antisemitic newspaper. Going back almost 30 years and finding that few articles to support it is surprising, you would easily find many more articles during the same time that are anti-Norwegian, anti-Danish, anti-Finnish, anti-Latvian, anti-Polish, anti-American, anti-French etc etc. There is nothing especially anti-Israeli about the paper and none of the sources supports your claim that "Aftonbladet has several times been accused of publishing antisemitic material". You're putting your desire to attack Aftonbladet above your honesty here.Jeppiz (talk) 14:52, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I deleted these paragraphes per Wikipedia:No original research. The sources for these allegations are from Aftonbladet itself (exept one). Therfore, Aftonbladet can't be accusing itself of being antisemitic. Instead, the allegations were collected by a wikipedian and this is called an original research --Osm agha (talk) 16:26, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Osm agha. Slarre's paragraph is a prime example of original research. It links to one source that explicitly states that Aftonbladet is not antisemitic and to a a few articles in Aftonbladet itself that Slarre seems to think are antisemitic. The bottom line is that nowhere in any of these sources is Aftonbladet accused of antisemitism. It is just Slarre's personal opinion, and as such has no place in the article.Jeppiz (talk) 16:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this is not what original reaserch means. Did Slarre claim that Aftonbladt is antisemetic? No, he didn't, others made that claim and that is a fact, one which Aftonbladt itself admits. Slarre did not invent those examples. He took them from a perfectly reasonable source, referenced them properly, and did not voice his own personal opinion. Did Aftonbladt publish those examples? Yes, it did. No one is disputing that. The fact that Aftonbladt then opines that these are not antisemetic, does not mean that informing the reader of this article of their existance constitutes original research. The fact that you don't think them antisemitic, or that Slarre does, is completely immaterial. The accusations have been made, that's all the article says, and by deleting them you're simply enforcing your own POV. Poliocretes (talk) 16:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but Slarre is the only one claiming Aftonbladet is antisemitic. Nowhere in the sources he listed is that claim made, so Slarre most certainly did "voice his own personal opinion" and nothing else. So when you say that "The accusations have been made", I'm saying that we need a source making those accusations. There might be such sources, but Slarre has not yet presented any.Jeppiz (talk) 17:34, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I looked for information about the website:newsmill.se ,which Slarre used it as a source, and I found out that it's like a blog. I translated the swedich wikipedia article about newsmill using google tools and here is the translation:

Newsmill is a Swedish website for "news comments and debate" [1]. It was opened to the public 3 September 2008, [2] although it is still called "beta". Editorial run by p.m. Nilsson (CEO, editor and publisher), Leo Lagercrantz (editor) and Karin Eder Ekman, [3] who have previously worked in Expressen and Aftonbladet. [4] The site is owned by Bonnier, Proventus, PM Nilsson and Leo Lagercrantz. DN.se and Resume.se, as well as Newsmill owned by Bonnier, then links the launch diligently to debate articles on Newsmill.

On Newsmill can buy their editorial space. For 50 000 kronor per week may be guaranteed publication. [5]

When the magazine Internet World in November 2008 appointed Sweden's 100 best sites, got Newsmill on site 45 described as "the best opinion site".

More than that, I looked for JONATHAN LEMAN, who wrote the article in newsmill and it seems that he is just a blogger --Osm agha (talk) 17:47, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Newsmill has elements of a blog, yes, but I don't think that's a problem here. The problem is that the allegations Slarre has invented have not been made by Newsmill.Jeppiz (talk) 17:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, a valid point. But as there's no disagreement that the examples provided did take place then why was the entire section deleted instead of the first line alone (or simply marked with a "citation needed" label like the Linda Rosing sentence)? As they were properly referenced and did not contitute an opinion or POV, there was nothing wrong with them. They're no different from the other controversies mentioned, and there's no reason why they can't be brought back. 18:13, 25 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Poliocretes (talk • contribs)

That is true. The "problem", or rather "challenge" is to write a proper section on criticism. As I already mentioned, similar cases can be found for many countries, nationalities, political ideologies etc. (I remeber a recent case when and editorial in Aftonbladet tried to link President Sarkozy to the Front National). The task, then, would be to decide which articles we should link to and what claims we could make. I am in no way opposed to linking to the cases Slarre has introduced, but I don't think it's a good idea to link just to them as it gives the expression of an anti-Jewish bias when we are talking about a sensationalist newspaper that is heavily biased against anything even slightly right-wing, Christian, American, Norwegian (There have been several controversies about articles about Norway in Aftonbladet) etc etc. My suggestion is that we try to find a balanced and sourced way forward, even though I understand that tensions are high at the moment with the focus on Aftonbladet and Israel.Jeppiz (talk) 18:21, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Jeppiz: First, since you have no idea about my personal opinion on this matter, I'd be nice if you could respect Wikipedia:Assume good faith and Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Nowhere have I stated that Aftonbladet is an "antisemitic newspaper", so stop claiming that. Yes, Aftonbladet is a tabloid that often publishes ill-founded articles on many subjects. However, it is also the largest newspaper in Scandinavia, and as such allegations from many credible sources regarding prejudice against Jews and Judaism is very relevant. I don't know if you live in Sweden or how much you follow the Swedish political debate, but if you do then you'd probobly know that the debate regarding Aftonbladet and (alleged) antisemitism is not a new one. I've now reworded the intro sentence and added more sources to substantiate this. The examples that are brought up are not my own ones, but are the ones provided by Leman and Wiberg in their critique (if you'd read the article, you'd know that). These examples have also been brought up by others, as I've clarified now. I have also added to response by Aftonbladet in the cases where they have been accused and responded, to make it more balanced. I hope that this is acceptable to you, at least no one can accuse me of "original research". /Slarre (talk) 21:27, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

First of all, I think Slarre has done a good job with rewriting the paragraph. I would still like to correct a few things in his post. Having read your userpage, I have a pretty good idea about your personal opinion as you make it very clear. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem whatsoever with that, I'm just pointing out that my comment wasn't unfounded. The paragraph you wrote started off with claiming that Aftonbladet has often been accused of antisemitism without providing a single source supporting it, so I think it was valid to point it out at that point.

Having said that, I would like to thank you for the effort you have put into rewriting the paragraph. It is now a very well sourced critical section and you are certainly above accusations of original research with this very much improved version. (Unfortunately, I follow the Swedish political debate far too much, reading the major papers every day; the time I put into it is certainly not worth the meager interest it has to offer. That is of course just a personal observation.)Jeppiz (talk) 23:23, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, I understand your points. Good to have it sorted out. /Slarre (talk) 23:34, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

The political commentators' explanation

I accidentally hit enter too soon, so I'll put the "two things" I was going to mention in here instead:

A) Rewrite the paragraph so that you describe it as somebody else's point of view. As it is, that paragraph presented the attitude of said political commentators as the official opinion of the Wikipedia article. B) Present alternative political explanations that are somewhat less one-sided and less cynical. Note that all of the cited sources were Swedish. Presenting this as the only possible explanation for the Israeli government's behavior is very heavily biased. Kimpire (talk) 07:57, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

A) Good point. B) Got any sources? // Liftarn (talk)

Conflicting statements about circulation

The article states Aftonbladet is the biggest newspaper i Scandinavia but the article about Dagens Nyheter states it's the biggest newspaper in Sweden.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.167.6.40 (talk • contribs)

DN is the largest morning (subscription) newspaper in Sweden; Aftonbladet has no subscribers. 83.166.19.197 12:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Aftonbladet is complete and utter garbage. If anyone wondered. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.233.0.243 (talk • contribs) 01:32, 24 December 2007

That is a valid point of view. Still, it is a medium where many leading news stories and opinions are published, and quite useful as a source in Wikipedia. --LA2 (talk) 00:51, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Should perhaps be semi-protected? With all the antisemitism talk here in Israel (without going to the subject whether it's true or not), could be potentially a target for vandalism. Leo Natan 09:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lnatan25 (talk • contribs)

The article now says "Aftonbladet.se is also, according to themselves, the most visited news site in Europe." Aside from the confusion of whether aftonbladet.se is singular ("itself") or plural ("themselves"), I don't know whether aftonbladet.se actually says this, but it's preposterous. Checking just now at alexa.com, it reports that in the past 3 months of the world's pageviews, 0.10865% were on bbc.co.uk, and 0.00791% were on aftonbladet.se. In other words, bbc.co.uk has more than 13 times the pageviews as aftonbladet.se. I would like to put something in the article after this sentence, something like, "However, as of August 2009, bbc.co.uk has more than 13 times the Internet traffic as aftonbladet.se." And I would want to reference this sentence to a web link that someone could click in August 2010 and still see that as of August 2009, this ratio prevailed. I don't know how to do that, but I expect someone else can figure it out.Anomalocaris (talk) 04:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Controversial articles

I'm adding a few highly controversial articles Aftonbladet has published for discussion about how to write the criticism. In this editorial [1], French president Sarkozy is described as an extreme right wing nationalist with policies bringing France back to the Vichy-France era, a nepotist, a right wing populist, anti-immigration, islamophobe etc.Jeppiz (talk) 18:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Here is an article [2] accusing the Italian government of being "fascists", "xenophobic", "racist" and "right-wing extremists", calling on the EU to implement sanctions against Italy. I'm no fan of Berlusconi myself, but to use such language in editorial is rather noteworthy.Jeppiz (talk) 18:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

1) It's an opinion piece, not an article. 2) All those claims can be substantiated. // Liftarn (talk) 19:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

1. It's an editorial. 2. That is a matter of opinion. Can one hold those views? Certainly. Are they controversial? Yes. The headings says "Controversial". Ask any Italian if they find it controversial to find their government described as "fascists", "xenophobic", "racist" and "right-wing extremists" and they'll say yes.Jeppiz (talk) 19:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe we can't add these articles as controversial articles if they did not make controversies!! --Osm agha (talk) 22:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

What is Wikipedia's current policy towards non-English references? Currently, references 27 and 29 are non-English and I am pretty sure that Swedish -> English translation of automated sites is none too good. No matter how accurate the understanding of the translator, the addition of non-English references in the English Wikipedia needs to have a very good reason as it restricts the ability of the readership to determine for themselves if the source is valid. For instance, a link the original article in Aftonbladet would be justified, but I'm not sure a commentary on the article in Swedish is necessarily justified. 149.169.100.193 (talk) 04:25, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

It is rather natural that many sources for a Swedish newspaper will be in Swedish, isn't it? Why would we deprive ourselves of available sources in any language?Jeppiz (talk) 04:46, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem is largely a matter of trust. The number of people that can verify a source as legitimate, does unbiased original research and/or does not have an extreme bias, is greatly reduced when one references an article that is not in the primary language of that section of wikipedia. I personally cannot verify any article outside of English and Hebrew. And as you may have noticed, my personal belief on this prevents me from using Hebraic newspapers as references in this article. 149.169.100.193 (talk) 06:33, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Split

The section on the "2009 organ harvesting controversy" is getting quite lengthy now, perhaps it should be split into a separate article. And if so, what should the title be? "Aftonbladet 2009 organ harvesting controversy" or something else? /Slarre (talk) 23:40, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

A split may make sense. The name, however, may need some fine-tuning. There's no need for a "2009" disambiguator since there was no organ harvesting issue prior to now. The term "organ harvesting controversy" is also misleading in that it suggests that the controversy was about the organ harvesting per se. The controversy is not about organ harvesting, but about the the paper's or Sweden's refusal to denounce or apologize for its publication. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 20:52, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The controversy certainly is about the issue of possible organ harvesting. // Liftarn (talk)

Not really. The allegations of actual harvesting is anti-Semitic/conspiracy theory WP:FRINGE. It's the non-apology and non-denouncement of the article's publication and Israel's anger that makes this controversial.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 21:31, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Just spun off 2009 Aftonbladet antisemitism controversy. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 21:52, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Moved the page to Aftonbladet-Israel controversy. I agree with Liftarn. Brewcrewer is right in claiming that the controvery isn't about organ harvesting, but neither is it correct and POV to decide that it's anti-semitic. I picked the name Aftonbladet-Israel controversy as a neutral title. I don't like titles including "organ harvesting" as the claims made by Aftonbladet are so vague and unsourced that no organ harvesting has been proved or even made suspiscious. Such titles are a bit pro-Aftonbladet POV. I also dislike titles involving antisemitism, since they per se conclude that antisemitism was an issue in the publication and thus are anti-Aftonbladet POV. The current title makes it clear that this was a controversy involving Aftonbladet and Israel but does not take sides on the topic itself.Jeppiz (talk) 22:04, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Putting Isreal in the article name is misleading. The Aftonbladet criticism has moved far beyond the Isreali FM and is being discussed way beyond Israel's shores. Indeed, this is not so much an Israeli issue, but a Jewish issue. Although are plenty of conspiracy theories going around, this specific libel struck the cord of Jews worldwide because of Jews' history of suffering from these types of blood libels. Thus, this is much more about antisemitism, then about Israel per se. Granted, that at this time, the evidence that this article arose from antisemitism is only circumstantial, but its antisemitism that is the bete noir and main undercurrent here and should properly be represented in the article name.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 22:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

"Indeed, this is not so much an Israeli issue, but a Jewish issue." Exactly the opposite. The allegations were made against the IDF. It's the an Israeli army, not a Jewish army. There are people of different religions and ethnicities in the IDF, they are all Israeli but they are not all Jewish. For all we know, the soldiers having killed the boy mentioned in the articles could have been, say, Druzes. Liberman is a state representative of Israel, not the Jewish people of which the majority live in other countries that Israel. So having Israel in the name is in no way misleading. I suggest further discussions on this issue are taken at the talk page of that article, no point in duplicating everything here.Jeppiz (talk) 23:29, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

That organs has been removed seems to have at least some basis in reality as several witnesses confirm. The link between missing organs and illegal organ transplants is on the other side weak. // Liftarn (talk) 08:52, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Did you read the article? There are no witnesses that have confirmed that any organs have been removed, it's all just "suspicions" from some Palestinians. /Slarre (talk) 17:53, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

It is precisely this problem - that people will assume there's some sort of debate re the validity of these claims - that the name "Aftonbladet-Israel controversy" perpetuates. The controversy is not about the claims, but about why there were published to begin with and why they have yet to be denounced or apologized over. See this comment.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 02:13, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

The core issue is actually the issue if we should have a free press or not, but that is a much wider issue. // Liftarn (talk) 10:10, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

AB has been much more heavily criticized for other things than anti-semitism. The current state of the article is due to lack of neutrality in addition to recentism. I've put up an NPOV-template until the criticism section balances out properly.

Peter ^Isotalo 07:13, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone have access to Per Ahlmark's book?

In regard to Aftonbladet#Controversy_surrounding_Israel_and_Jews and Ahlmark's quote, I have to guess that he is talking about coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Swedish newspapers, rather than other types of issues. Unfortunately we only have the one sentence, and I can't seem to find it in context online. If I presume correctly, however, then I think this suggests changing the section header to something like "Controversy surrounding coverage of Israel." These are some of the big issues covered in the debates about New antisemitism, but the point is that if the topic is coverage of Israel then we should probably say just that. Mackan79 (talk) 08:21, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Blaming grinchmas on the Jews

The article used to mention a newspaper piece blamed the Jews for Christmas not being celebrated, and now it doesn't do so directly. Isn't this relevant information to those interested in whether Aftonbladet is anti-Israel or anti-semitic? Andjam (talk) 10:02, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Controversy surrounding coverage of Israel

The above section was removed, the basis if which explained in an edit summary as "WP:WEIGHT.[3] As the deletion removes all information about Israel related coverage, I feel obliged to revert. While there may disproportionate information on this controversy, an effort must be made to properly prune the article before a wholesale deletion. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 01:34, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

In an article about a Swedish newspaper that has been around for180 years, 50 per cent of the article can't be about one article that was published in 2009. The editors who wrote this part of the article have selectively chosen the few sources who called Aftonbladet anti-semitic. I could dig up as many sources calling the New York Times anti-semitic, but it would be ludicrous do devote 50 per cent of the New Times article to accusations of anti-semitiscm. P. S. Burton (talk) 11:09, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the coverage may be somewhat disproportionate. But for the record, its coverage about Israel was considered controversial even before it published its conspiracy theory regarding organ thefts. Also, Aftonbladet's coverage about Israel was most likely disproportionate to begin with. Society's unhealthy obsession with Jews and Israel has been quite prevalent for quite some time now--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 13:39, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. Aftonbladet's coverage of celebrity gossip is disproportionate, their coverage of Israel is not different from that of the European press in general. Do you speak Swedish? P. S. Burton (talk) 17:41, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

It was the Aftonbladet, not other European papers, that published the organ theft conspiracy theory. In any case, their coverage clearly created controversy and the removal of any mention of controversy like you did, does not do justice to the reader interested in a balanced viewpoint of Aftonbladet and in the same vein does not to justice to Wikipedia's NPOV policy.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 19:02, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Ever heard of the The Boy Who Cried Wolf? P. S. Burton (talk) 16:52, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

The charges against Aftonbladet

On what basis can one, reasonably, accuse Aftonbladet for writing anti-Semitism? It's just nonsense! This article do have extrem problems with its neutrality. 109.225.77.105 (talk) 19:20, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

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