MANAGER
Steigan.no leans on a manipulated Russian view of reality, and has strong ties to the Red Party. The settlement must come quickly, and the conclusions must be clear.
INTERNAL REVIEW: Red announces an internal review. It can just as easily be called a settlement. Here party leader Bjørnar Moxnes. Photo: Hans Arne Vedlog / Dagbladet
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Manager: This is an editorial from Dagbladet, and expresses the newspaper’s views. Dagbladet’s political editor is responsible for the editorial.
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The alternative The news website Steigan.no has for many years been a very controversial player in the Norwegian public. The war in Ukraine has intensified the spotlight, and shown why the website plays a problematic role. The fact checkers in Faktisk.no have done a thorough analysis that shows that the website clearly stands out among Norwegian alternative media.
Between January 2021 and March 2022, the website accounted for 87 percent of the use of sources that “obviously belong to the Russian authorities” among Norwegian alternative media, the survey from Faktisk.no shows.
On the owner side of the company finds Dagbladet spy convicted Arne Treholt, and the ubiquitous alternative vote Kari Jaquesson – in addition to eight politicians from the party Red. One of the Red politicians is Per Gunnar Skotåm, who through his position in the party’s national board has a central role. This shows reviews that Dagbladet and newspaper Morgenbladet have done.
Claimed to spread Russian propaganda: Kari Jaquesson co-owner
John Færseth has written several books on conspiracy theories, and has followed the Norwegian alternative movement for a number of years. He characterizes to Dagbladet Steigan.no as «a channel into Norway for Russian propaganda narratives both in terms of Syria and Ukraine», and believes the website «uses and disseminates several of the same writers and reproduces many of the same stories as Russian propaganda media », And that they have done so« for so long, and over so many areas, that it is quite clearly a pattern ».
Steigan.no is operated by Pål Steigan, former AKP (ml) leader, who through a long career on the far left in Norwegian politics has excelled, among other things, with support for Pol Pot’s terror regime in Cambodia. Steigan refutes allegations that the site is engaged in Russian propaganda.
Of course no one will sign that they are engaged in Russian propaganda. Regardless, the review of the use of sources speaks its clear language. For a number of years, the Russian media landscape has been dominated by censorship and deliberate distortion of reality – also aimed at an international audience. During the war in Ukraine, there has been a level of obvious misinformation about what in all probability are war crimes, and draconian censorship laws to frame “fake news”. It is at best boundlessly naive, at worst a poisoning of the public debate, to reproduce almost uncritically and lean on a manipulated Russian perception of reality.
It says Steigan.no is free to continue, but for Rødt the link is totally destructive to the party’s credibility. Party secretary in Rødt, Benedikte Pryneid Hansen, tells Dagbladet that the party distances itself from the content on Steigan.no, and announces an internal review. It should not wait long, and the conclusions must be clear.
The party obviously has a number of sympathizers who are far more in agreement with Pål Steigan than party leader Bjørnar Moxnes in, for example, the view of the war in Ukraine. When Moxnes praised President Zelenskyj’s speech in the Storting in a Facebook update recently, he was met by a landslide of strong counter-reactions. The perspectives that Steigan.no conveys have gained a solid foothold in parts of the Norwegian public, apparently especially related to the Red Party. A settlement is needed.
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