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Charlie Beckett

February 26th, 2007

Papers can't live by facts alone

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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Charlie Beckett

February 26th, 2007

Papers can't live by facts alone

0 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

One of the world’s oldest newspapers has given up the struggle and gone entirely digital. No more Scandinavian pines will give up their pulp to provide pagination for the Post-Och Inrikes Tidningar. Since 1645 it has been the paper of record for information on government affairs in Sweden. “A cultural disaster” is how one former editor described the move to exclusively online publication.
But in fact the story is somewhat different. The Post-Och in fact had a circulation of about 1,000 for its very factual diet of government announcements, bulletins and technical information. If I tell you that the biggest advertiser was not Volvo or Ikea but the Swedish Patents Office then I think you can see that this was not the Scandanavian equivalent of the Sun or the Guardian.
The point that this move online makes is that if a publication is purely factual then it might as well be a website. Newspapers have to be living, opinionated, grabby reads that you can enjoy with a coffee or on a bus.

About the author

Charlie Beckett

Posted In: International | Journalism | Media