Et innblikk i den norske mediedebatten om 9/11.




Chief Editor and CEO of Stavanger Aftenblad, Sven Egil Omdal, wrote on Saturday, November 24 that America may be behind the attack on New York and Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Omdal’s editorial was printed in the Saturday editions of Adresseavisen, Bergens Tidende, Fædrelandsvennen and Stavanger Aftenblad.

It all started with two Norwegian civil engineers, Ove and Jan Hundseid, from Sandnes and Stavanger, respectively, who sent a letter with two DVDs to Chief Editor Omdal. The letter and the DVDs try to «pull apart what is referred to as the OCT – the Official Conspiracy Theory – the US Government’s version of what happened on that bloody Tuesday in September six years ago.»

– When both the Editor of Stavanger Aftenblad and one of its leading cultural journalists call for a critical investigation of the events of September 11, that’s really quite a revolution, comments Kim Bredesen, journalist for the Nordic edition of Le Monde diplomatique.

– And it’s worth noticing that this is an initiative from the big mainstream newspapers, not from left-radical media. It’s a signal that we have an elephant in our own living-room that the media up untill now have made no less than a fantastic effort of ignoring. But the situation is not unfamiliar. The same thing happened with American media in relation to Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, and the alleged connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. The problem is rooted in the uncritical use of news agencies and blind faith in government institutions. But it’s no conspiracy, merely a massive bubble of naïvete. The Fourth Estate in this case has acted in affect. But this time the issue has much more damaging dimensions. We’re talking about a massive lack of judgement in all of the Western media. It’s been an undermining of Democracy which the public sphere might not pull through without severe losses.

Chief Editor Omdal ends his Editorial in the four big regional newspapers by saying that Norway has only seen feeble attempts at covering the growing opposition to the Bush Administration’s presentation of September 11.

– Since our soldiers are dying in the war that was a first response to the attacks, and our ports are to be enclosed by fences, and we are to be stripped even more naked every time we board a plane as a consequence of the official version, it might be a good idea to have a closer look at the letter I received from the two civil engineers. Even if there were many names on the copy list.

It then remains to be seen if the Oslo newspapers in Akersgata and the Giro Tower will touch this issue. Sven Egil Omdal is in any case right in stating that this is one of the biggest issues of our time. It was even before the announced revolution of the mainstream media and Western politics. God only knows how society will look after it.

Non-Norwegian speakers may read a quick translation of Chief Editor Omdal’s editorial in full here.

Photo: Herd of sheep. (Wikimedia Commons)

Sweet som fan!!!!