Politics, Norwegian politics | The Facebook page caused quite a stir in the NRK studio: – You are brutal

In NRK’s ​​Dagsnytt 18 on Thursday evening, he characterized it as nothing less than an accident that the Facebook page is back.

– I can quote Nils Nilsen, who is behind “Sørlandsnyheten”, on what he said when it was shut down. He said that “they had created a monster” that many believed was out of control. He then held out a hand and apologized for the unreasonableness he had exposed people to, said Stavrum, editor-in-chief of Nettavisen and of Amedia’s new newspaper venture in Kristiansand, KRS.

– They engaged in a mixture of personal harassment, lies, half-truths and some truths, he continued, and accused Nils Nilsen of carrying out a political coup in Kristiansand and taking almost the entire town hostage.

– They have used a methodology that is burdensome for those who are exposed. They are referred to as “incompetent”, as “crooks”, as “participants in a corruption church”. These are very harsh accusations that cannot be documented, thundered Stavrum.

Here is an extract from the heated exchange in the NRK studio:

Here you can see the entire debate in Dagsnytt 18.

Shaked his head

Nils Nilsen, himself a city council representative and now mayoral candidate for the Southern Party, shook his head at the accusations in the NRK studio.

– It has been taken out of context. It is true that I said we had created a monster, but the context of that is that it completely took off. The monster consisted as much of those who tried to brand us as liars and conspiracy theorists, he countered.

Nilsen was elected to the Kristiansand city council for the Democrats in 2019. He broke with the party in 2022 and joined the Industrial and Business Party, but was kicked out from there a short time later.

Tipped off the media

Nilsen also claimed that what Sørlandsnyheten has written has turned out to be true and that Stavrum himself, along with several other large media houses, has published cases they have tipped him off about.

– I have been involved in financial journalism for 40 years and talked to criminals and fraudsters. We welcome tips, but before we publish them, we check them. And then we allow those who are accused of something to respond. That is what is so disgusting about that site of yours, that if you continue in the same track as before you shut it down, you are not doing journalism. You are very brutal in your description of ordinary people who believe something different from you, Stavrum replied.

Again, Nilsen reacted strongly to the accusations.

– You attribute motives to me that I do not have. It can certainly be me who should apologize if people feel offended, but this is not in proportion to the harassment I myself am exposed to. I am a dissenting voice in a democracy. If we cannot distribute the means to influence each other evenly, then we will not have democracy, he retorted.

Request deletion

“Sørlandsnyheten” divides Kristiansand and stirs up emotions before the municipal election campaign in the autumn. Conservative mayoral candidate Mathias Bernander is uneasy. He hopes the “Sørland news” will be deleted from Facebook.

– Here we have a website on Facebook that has spread undocumented claims about politicians and public employees, without it being possible to accommodate it. Then they have just been blocked and deleted, he says to NRK.

– We have struggled many times with the parties to get people to stand on lists, because the previous election campaign was so ugly, precisely because of this Facebook page.