Newspapers

Reading the newspaper in Norway is right up there with talking about the weather or complaining about taxes. I read a travel book of Norway while on the ferry one day– it was translated to English and it highlighted every town along the coast. Each city’s description started off like this: Aalesund, population: 40,000; newspaper subscriptions: 38,000. Several cities had nearly as many newspaper subscribers as they have residents.




I thought about that for a while and wondered how that could be since children wouldn’t be subscribers... but then I figured it out. In our city alone there were no less than four major newspapers, two local ones and two national ones. Everyone I know reads two or three of them a day. It’s the national pass-time.



The newspapers in Norway aren’t anything at ALL like the American ones where the motto is “If it bleeds, it leads.” In fact, Norwegian newspapers are mostly human interest stories (somewhat like the LaConner Weekly News!) and the bad news is buried somewhere in the middle and not at all highlighted. Norwegians don’t like to hear bad news.



There are very few advertisements in Norwegian papers (the bulk of the pages have no ads whatsoever) and they are all in full color – every page. Of course, each paper costs about four dollars a day, but people still buy them and read nearly every word. They report on even the slightest of details.



Norway doesn’t have the censorship in newspapers like they do in America. They don’t omit a word, and swear words are often in the headlines. (They actually HAVE freedom of speech in Norway as no one can lose a job or get sued for something they say.) They also have at least one naked body picture a week in the paper, as nudity in Norway means nothing. It’s just the human body and they don’t have any modesty when it comes to that (that was a little hard to get used to).



On the whole, newspapers are pretty interesting as they highlight a lot of local people and what they are doing in their jobs or with their spare time. I’m sure everyone that lives in Norway has been written up in the newspaper more than once in their lifetime. I guess it’s the way Norwegians feel connected to one another, without actually having to talk to each other and dare risk sharing their feelings.