This whole self-imposed Swedish press censorship phenomenon I’ve come across this past week doesn’t cease to amaze me. I’m not done yet with the debate on the naming/not naming of Anna Lindh murder suspect Per-Olof Svensson (whose name absolutely everybody knew by last call in Stockholm Friday night) but first, thisI’m excerpting because Reuters stories don’t last forever.:

Oprah chastised for pro-war bias
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Sweden’s broadcasting watchdog says it is censuring an Oprah Winfrey talk show for showing bias towards a U.S. military attack on Iraq.
 
The censure means Swedish television network TV4, which broadcast the show in February, must publish the decision but there are no legal or financial penalties, Annelie Ulfhielm, an official of Sweden’s Broadcasting Commission, told Reuters.
 
“Different views were expressed, but all longer remarks gave voice to the opinion that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States and should be the target of attack,” Sweden’s Broadcasting Commission said on WednesdayTypical: Every time I stop reading Andrew Sullivan because he is so insufferable, he comes up with a worthy observation, so I missed this link when he posted it on Wednesday. Still, the Swedish press seems not to have picked up on it in the meantime..

I’m practically sputtering (metaphorically) as I write this. American talk shows broadcast in Sweden have to be “fair” in terms of time allotted to opposing viewpoints? How can anyone possibly care what goes on in an Oprah show? Next week: Jerry Springer sides too much with deadbeat dads who sleep with their daughters! David Letterman’s jokes are hurtful to Austro-Californians! FoxNews’s Bill O’Reilly just won’t shut up!

Does the broadcasting commission think that Swedes are too stupid to resist a one-sided argument? It’s the only explanation that I can come up with. How perfectly condescending.

I want to revisit my earlier reasons why not publishing Per-Olof Svensson’s name is hypocriticalUpdate 2003/9/24: Svensson is released, and no longer under suspicion for Anna Lindh’s murder. A new suspect is arrested.. It seems to me that Aftonbladet and others have completely perverted the newsworthiness test, perhaps precisely because there is a taboo placed on publishing his name and picture. If I were an editor of a non-sensationalist broadsheet, I would publish his name, his picture, his alleged nazi links, and his history of mental illness, all on the grounds of newsworthiness. I would not publicize his sexual preference, his conspicuous consumption, testimonials by various ex-girlfriends and boyfriends, and the important news that supermodel Emma Sjöberg went to school with him. Yet that is what the Swedish press has been writing about Svensson in lurid detail, though the papers instead call him “the 35-year old.”

As long as you know that these sensationalist stories are about that suspect, it doesn’t matter what you call him; the damage is being done. If Swedish media were following their code of ethics according to the spirit of the law rather than the letter, we’d see far fewer of those stories in print, and perhaps a basic fact or two, like his name.