Seven Lessons Scandinavian Media Can Teach Us On topics ranging from job training to self-regulation (I wrote this for the Columbia Journalism Review, published yesterday here.) * Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark are consistently ranked highest in the world for both freedom of the press and participatory democracy. The Scandinavian population has among the highest news readership in the world, [...]
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Scandinavian Public Media Fight for Their Right to Grow Potential regulatory changes spell an uncertain future (I wrote this for the Columbia Journalism Review, published yesterday here.) * From cuts to controversies, NPR and PBS haven’t had an easy time of it lately. Indeed, the news last month that the National Endowment for the Arts had [...]
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Denmark Launches New Public Radio Network Radio24syv hopes to challenge old stalwart DR (I wrote this for the Columbia Journalism Review, published yesterday here.) * On a Friday afternoon in November, Denmark’s latest experiment in public broadcasting had only been up and running for two and a half weeks. Radio24syv’s Copenhagen headquarters were busy, but still under-furnished; young-looking [...]
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Self-Regulation Done Right How Scandinavia’s press councils keep the media accountable (I wrote this for the Columbia Journalism Review, published today here.) * When right-wing militant Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in and around bucolic Oslo last July, the story dominated the press in Norway for months. For many of the survivors, and for loved [...]
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Teletext Lives on in Scandinavia The pre-Internet digital news service shuts down in the UK, but survives in Northern Europe (I wrote this for the Columbia Journalism Review, published yesterday here.) * Just about every television in Europe has a “teletext” button. Push the button on your television remote and you’re digitally transported to the early [...]
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Farting Puppets: The Terrific, Bizarre World of Danish Kids’ TV (I published this a while ago on The Awl, but forgot to post it here til now.) A little more than two years ago, Denmark’s absurdly well-funded public-television network DR spun off some of its children’s programming and launched a separate station just for kids. [...]
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Today I published a piece about Wasteland Twinning, an art collective whose members I met while in Stockholm. The article, “Cities’ Forgotten Spaces Become Artists’ Canvases,” is up on the GOOD website, and was also sent out as today’s “The Daily GOOD” email. Read the piece and see my accompanying photos here.
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Occupy Scandinavia’s Long Winter (Published today on The Awl, with some of my photos.) By all accounts, Scandinavia is one of the most prosperous, peaceful and income-equal places to live in the world. Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark hold four of the top five spots in the World Democracy Index (the U.S. ranks 15th). The Scandinavian countries [...]
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This just went up yesterday on the Columbia Journalism Review website, a collection of my favorite pieces from the past year. Best of 2011: Lauren Kirchner From AOL to HuffPo, Kirchner picks her top CJR stories from the past year By Lauren Kirchner Salon and Slate in the Way-Back Machine: When The Daily launched early this year—to [...]
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It’s always funny to learn about the different associations people have with America and Americans. In the past few days in Copenhagen, I’ve benefited from some surprising and positive ones. A few nights ago, we got caught at a bar listening to some music, and when we left to find some dinner, it was pretty [...]
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If I’m counting right, I think I traveled alone–through Sweden, Finland, and Norway–for six and a half weeks. My boyfriend, Evan, met up with me for the last week and a half of my trip: first in Gothenburg, Sweden, and here in Copenhagen, Denmark. I’m still reporting for my research project on Scandinavian media, so [...]
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I just realized that I’ve gone almost two months now without a cell phone. And it’s been great. That is all.
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I’m in Copenhagen now, the last stop on my big tour before heading home to the US this weekend. Copenhagen: home of Legos, Carlsberg beer, and globally-ranked happiness, among many other things. My first impressions include an overabundance of pizza shops, hilarious graffiti, man-made lakes, and what seem to be more bikes in this city [...]
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Here’s another passage I liked from Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel. It’s from the chapter called “Possessing Beauty.” When we visit a beautiful place, we want to bring it with us when we leave, we want to incorporate it into our lives. “Taking photographs can assuage the itch for possession sparked by the beauty [...]
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Before coming to Oslo I had planned on writing something (“something”) about the bombing and shooting attacks that took place downtown and on the island of Utøya on July 22. But now that I’m here I know that I won’t. It’s been just three and a half months, and the shock of that day still [...]
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Everyone I’ve met in Oslo has been incredibly kind and generous; my interviews here more often than not will spread out into hours-long, rambling, entertaining conversations. The only part I don’t like is the part where the Norwegians apologize for their English. It makes me feel like such a spoiled jerk. Here I am, coming [...]
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A curious thing about traveling alone is that you don’t tend to get any photos of yourself in the places you’re visiting. Unless you ask strangers to take an awkward shot of you smiling in front of a thing, your pictures can turn out a bit anonymous. I realized this the other day when I [...]
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What can I say about Oslo? I arrived last night and still haven’t seen too much of it, but my first impression is that it feels like a cross between Paris and 5th Avenue Manhattan, and it smells like cinnamon and bonfires. It’s clean and quiet and rich. Everyone is well-dressed in a nondescript kind [...]
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I spent all day today on a train from Bergen to Oslo, a six-and-a-half-hour trip that was billed as one of the world’s most beautiful rides, and I was not disappointed. The trip started in the morning before the sun had risen, and as the sun rose throughout the day, the train glided up and [...]
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Yesterday I spent a foggy morning at Bryggen Museum, the permanent exhibit of which shows what the city of Bergen was like in Medieval times, when it was the capital of Norway and an important trading post of the Hanseatic League. It was a time when 80 to 90 percent of the town’s economy was [...]
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I forgot to write about an interesting dinner I had on Friday. It was my last night in Helsinki, and I decided to forgo the crappy takeout I had been having and go for a dinner in a more upscale restaurant that served traditional Scandinavian food. I ordered the special of the night, which was [...]
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Okay folks, forget Helsinki’s Vatican. This hotspot in scenic Bergen, Norway, is my kind of nightclub: [Update: While I'm at it, this is my kind of McDonald's:]
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I used to be able to function reasonably well on very little sleep, but I must be getting too old. I just can’t do it anymore. I got very little sleep last night and this whole day has felt like an acid trip. Not that I have ever done acid, but it felt like what [...]
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I love this. From the entryway of the stunning Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki: “Visitor’s Book — Press your hand against the marble. Over the years, visitor’s touching it will wear a shape into the stone.”
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This is from the beginning of a page in a brochure I picked up in a Helsinki tourism office; I can’t put my finger on it, but because of the way this passage is translated, I feel vaguely warned. When I read this, I hear the voice of a horror-film-trailer voice-over in my head: You [...]
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Irreverent, or just lost in translation? You decide.
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It’s common knowledge that you don’t really have to tip in Europe, because in contrast to service jobs in the US, people here are paid actual salaries. I still think it’s a good idea to tip a little bit, though, or at least round up, for bartenders, hairdressers, and taxis. But I wonder if other [...]
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I’ve only spent one day in Helsinki so far, so I’ll just make a few observations: -Finns love licorice. After a very strong cup of coffee this morning, I felt the need for something minty, so I went to a newsstand-type store inside the main train station. It looked like almost every piece of candy [...]
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Arriving in a new city at night can be very disorienting, and can also skew your first impressions of the place. Traveling by bus this evening from the Helsinki airport to my hotel, my first impression of the city was that it was all highways and malls, because that’s all I could see–everything else was [...]
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I’m leaving Stockholm tomorrow for the next stop on my tour. The rest of my trip through Scandinavia will be much more accelerated, and I won’t have nearly as much time to get to know the next few cities as I feel I’ve (even just a little bit) gotten to know this one. I’m going [...]
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I’m not really a huge shopper, but there’s something about Scandinavian design that makes me want to absolutely empty my bank account. There seem to be an inordinate number of interior design-y type stores here in Stockholm, selling furniture, lighting, rugs, etc. The aesthetic here is very appealing to me: simple, clean, colorful but uncluttered. [...]
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If I thought I could avoid Halloween shenanigans by escaping New York, I thought wrong. I’ve seen way more fake-blood-covered hipster zombies this weekend than I ever needed to. (Below: an ad from the metro.)
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On the railing of Västerbron, the bridge that crosses between Södermalm, Långholmen, and Marieberg, there is a huge cluster of padlocks with names on them. A friend told me that this is a tradition here (and elsewhere in Europe…I suppose it could be in the US, too, but I haven’t seen it), for couples to [...]
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Fans of Stieg Larsson’s Millenium series will remember that the trilogy’s heroine, hacker-investigator Lisbeth Salander is always drinking black coffee and eating “Billy’s Pan Pizzas.” When I saw a freezer full of them in the grocery store today, I knew that, in the name of science literature, I had to try one. I picked up an [...]
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Why is no one else freaked out by these horrible-sounding birds that flock and gather every night in the trees overhead on the island of Södermalm? I find them terrifying; they sound like the winged monkeys in Oz. Take a listen to this short recording I made and see if you agree. I don’t know [...]
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In the past week or so I’ve been meeting with a lot of different producers and directors at SVT (which is like our PBS, but much more extensive), and Sveriges Radio (which is like our NPR) in Stockholm. Hearing them talk about the media scene here, and seeing their quizzical faces while they listen to [...]
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Here’s a short and kind of wobbly video of the permanent sculpture installation “The Fantastic Paradise” outside the Moderna Museet (Modern Art Museum) in Stockholm. Finished in 1967, it was a collaboration between French artist Niki de Saint Phalle, who was known for large, brightly-colored ceramic or paper-mache figures, and Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely, who [...]
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Here’s just a little postscript to my post from a while ago, about outgoing kids and their non-outgoing parents in Sweden. I just had the following exchange with a little blond kid, probably about four or five years old, and his mom, when I was coming down the stairs in my apartment building and they [...]
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I could not possibly be a reporter abroad without: 1. Gmail 2. Google Voice 3. Google Translate 4. The entire Strangers With Candy series, available for free (international) online viewing on the Comedy Central website.
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On my way to an interview at SVT today (Sweden’s PBS), walking to the office building on Oxenstiernsgatan, I saw a bunch of people sitting in a tree in the middle of the median strip. The group was protesting the city’s planned removal of the gigantic oak; apparently the city says the tree is rotten [...]
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I went to a great house party last weekend. The party was so great that I ended up getting in a sort-of argument with the hostess’s boyfriend. (Always a good idea!) He, like other Swedes I talked to that night, was curious about my impressions of the country as a first-timer here, and about the [...]
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Some Swedish street signs, and what I can only assume they mean.
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I like the bathrooms in Sweden quite a bit. In many public places like train stations, libraries, and even little kiosks on the street, you have to pay to use them (usually 10 kr, or about $1.50) – but that means that they’re staffed, and big enough so that there’s not usually a line, and [...]
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(I wrote this piece today for the Columbia Journalism Review website, double-posted here.) Trial Begins Tomorrow for Journalists Imprisoned in Ethiopia Their Swedish colleagues demand justice October 19, 2011 Two Swedish journalists who have been imprisoned in Ethiopia for almost four months will face terrorism charges in Addis Ababa tomorrow. Freelance photojournalist Johan Persson and [...]
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So, I am a big fan of Marc Maron‘s podcast series, and while traveling I’ve been catching up on a bunch of them. In the beginning of the Jimmy Shubert episode (number 202), Maron talks about how he’s recently gotten involved in a lot of creative and professional projects at once, and how all the new opportunities [...]
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Sweden loves August Strindberg. The Stockholm-born playwright, essayist, novelist, and painter was quite a prolific guy. Probably best known for the play “Miss Julie,” Strindberg wrote sixty more plays besides that one, and thirty books. Some of his manuscripts, diaries, and oil paintings are on display at the Nordiska Museet, a museum of Swedish cultural [...]
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When I first arrived in my sublet in Stockholm, I met the teenage daughter of the woman I’m renting a room from, and the daughter’s boyfriend. They were very sweet and friendly and curious, and without wasting any time, they hit me up with two burning questions about America: 1) Is it true that less [...]
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The other day I happened to walk by a store in Stockholm called “The English Shop,” promising “solace for homesick expats.” I love British candy, so I went in to check it out. There was all the stuff you’d expect: Vegemite, PG Tips tea, Heinz salad cream, HP Sauce, etc. But there was also an American [...]
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While in Kiruna, the northernmost city in Sweden, I had the excellent luck of getting to go on a tour of the underground iron mine there, which happens to be the world’s largest. I say “luck” because I went up there in the off-season (much too late for the midnight-sun summer festivals, but too early [...]
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