Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Norwegian TV on Finland

After the massacre in Kauhajoki, Norwegian TV2 is IMHO trying to sensationalize the story by bringing up old stereotypes and trying to prove them true. This happened in what seems like a parody of the news. Sadly, it really was the news.

A random person was interviewed whilst still sitting in their car. "What's that?" the reporter asked. "Is it a knife?" "Yes." "Why do you bring a knife with you?"

You know, I have a knife in the car, too. It has been standard inventory for my car for many years. There's always need for a knife. I may need to cut a branch somewhere, cut a rope or cut through some plastic wrap. I occationally use it to spread butter, cut cheese and apples, but mostly sheep sausages. And of course, it's good to have handy if I should accidentally run over a reindeer.

The Finn's knife was tiny compared to mine.

The report went on to a couple of teenagers. It seemed like the reporter was just running around town, looking for anything to make the town look like Hillbillyville. "Look! Skinheads! Are you a skinhead?" "Yes!" "Are there many skinheads in this town?" "Little." I'm sure there are more skinheads in Oslo than in Kauhajoki.

I wasn't sure if I was going to laugh at this terrible piece of news-turned-comedy, or plain weap at bad journalism. Because surely, this is not the kind of story a serious news channel should be focusing on a substory that isn't there. Rather, it would have been a perfect opportunity to instill some humanity in us all.

...and TV2 trolled even me...

2 comments:

Alphapenguin said...

You wrote:
"And of course, it's good to have handy if I should accidentally run over a reindeer."

And what exactly would you do with the knife in such a situation? Just curious. Us cityfolk want to know :)

Oh and more to the point of the comment: the producers of news are sensationalist liars -- In other news, the sky is blue, bears crap in the woods, water still wet.

Sadly, it doesn't surprise me. There used to be a time that I considered Norwegian news sources to be more "serious" than others (in particular compared to the US). If that was ever the case, it is no longer.

A-C said...

"It seemed like the reporter was just running around town, looking for anything to make the town look like Hillbillyville."

Sounds like some experiences I've got with the local media as well! Journalists running around, trying to create a story that will sell, even if they have to make something up..