Email 17 January 2024 to the chief editor of Aftenposten, Trine Eilertsen

 

The email was titled "Johan Galtung":

Trine Eilertsen

In the memorial for Per Egil Hegge on 12 October, Harald Stanghelle (cf. link) wrote: "He both exposed and scolded Johan Galtung in earnest, a peace researcher Hegge believed adorned himself with many borrowed feathers."

We have sent five e-mails to Stanghelle about this, cf. link. In email #2, 14 October, we asked, "What are your sources?" In e-mail no. 3, 8 December, we explained why Stanghelle should answer the question. Emails Nos. 4 and 5, 10 and 15 December, were slightly revised versions of No. 3.

Stanghelle has not replied. We suggest that Aftenposten answer the question. Our rationale is the PS below.

Sincerely

Erik Thorvik and Stig Riise Pettersen

Copy: Harald Stanghelle

PS The following is like email #5, except that (the introductory description of the change since email #4 has been removed, and) in both points (1b) and (10b2), the first sentence is slightly reworded:

​

Harald Stanghelle

Everything in this email from Erik Thorvik and Stig Riise Pettersen is documented in links (e.g. the emails from Thorvik to you on 12 and 14 October, cf. link).

About the history before your words about Johan Galtung in the memorial (link) about Per Egil Hegge:

(1) We had read 4 articles by Hegge in Aftenposten, where he accused a leftist man (Gudmund Hernes in 1999 (link), Johan Galtung in 2001 (link) and 2002 (link), and Helge Ingstad in 2010 (link)) for being incorrect. The article in 2002 contained 3 accusations against Johan Galtung, so that there were a total of 6 accusations in the 4 articles.

(1a) One can distinguish between three types of errors - definitive errors (i.e. assumptions that are demonstrably incorrect), obvious errors (i.e. assumptions that we cannot disprove, but are obviously incorrect), and misconceptions (i.e. assumptions that are definitive or obvious errors, they are not formulated explicitly, but the presentation gives the readers the impression that they are correct).

(1b) The following overview shows that there were at least 17 such errors (i.e. at least 17 examples of being incorrect) by Hegge in the 6 accusations of being incorrect (i.e. the 4 articles mentioned above) (cf. link)[At the time of writing this, we had not yet discovered an error no. 18, cf. our e-mail on 8 June in link and ÅF4 in section 4.4 in link. Including 2 really obvious errors in the 1999 article (in addition to the 2 errors in the 1999 article mentioned in the following table)(cf. section 2.2 in link), the number of errors was actually at least 20.]:

Year and name of the charge	Accused	Defi-nitiveerro-rs	Obv-ious erro-rs	Misc-once-ptions	Sum
1999 - Taxi	Gudmu-nd Hernes		1	1	2
2001 - Hiroshi-ma	Johan Galtung		1		1
2002 - USA	Johan Galtung	1	1		2
2002 –   al-Qaida	Johan Galtung	4		2	6
2002 - Meeting	Johan Galtung	1		1	2
2010 - Apaches	Helge Ingstad	3		1	4
Sum		9	3	5	17

 

(1c) Cf. link: In 4 of the 6 accusations, the accused was clearly innocent of what he was accused of (including that Helge Ingstad had made a different and much smaller mistake than Hegge claimed, Hegge must have been aware that he had not done what Hegge claimed that he had done). On the 2 remaining accusations:

• (1c1) About the Meeting-accusation against Johan Galtung in 2002 (link): Johan Galtung had said what Hegge said he had said, but among other things the fact that this was a humorous (and short) story, and a definitive error and a misconception in Hegge's presentation, gave an unrealistic impression of the matter.
• Hegge had previously presented the definitive error and (less clearly) the misconception in an article in Klassekampen in 2002 (link).
• A half-truth in an interview with Hegge in Dagbladet in 2004 (link), probably gave many readers an even more unrealistic misconception (cf. the remark at the end of the comment on the Meeting-accusation in link).
• (1c2) About the USA-accusation against Johan Galtung in 2002 (link): The topic is debatable degrees of realism in what Hegge and Johan Galtung said, and in Hegge's report of what Johan Galtung said. The justification for Hegge's accusation contained a definitive error and a misconception.
  

(2) Hegge had been unreasonably negative towards leftists also in the following cases:

• (2a) Egil "Drillo" Olsen in 1994 (link)
• (2b) Johan Galtung in a birthday comment (age 70) in 2000 (a violation of the good practice that birthday comments should be friendly) (link)
• (2c) Gudmund Hernes in 2003 (link)

(3) Hegge's choice of victims was the finest flowers. The 4 above-mentioned leftist men, mean that the best honor a leftist man could get, was to be among Hegge's victims.

(4) Cf. link: Two (three) days after the above-mentioned 2002 comment about Johan Galtung, Aftenposten printed a disparaging personal characterization of Johan Galtung (Gudmund Hernes), at the top of a page in bold. (Later in the same month, an article title contained a very derogatory personal characterization of Knut Løfsnes, unnecessary based on the article's content.)

(5) Cf. link [The following link is better: Link]: Halvor Tjønn's accusation against Johan Galtung in an Aftenposten article in 2012, Johan Galtung was clearly innocent of.

• In addition, Tjønn repeated the main point in the above-mentioned al-Qaeda-accusation (cf. (1b)). Johan Galtung was clearly innocent of this accusation. We had proven this in a reader's post in Aftenposten (link).
  

(6) Hegge's comments on the marxism-leninism movement (probably before the above comments), which you mention, we have not read. It has also been a long time since we read Aftenposten.

(7) We sent readers' posts to Aftenposten about 3 of the above-mentioned articles (about Johan Galtung in 2002, Helge Ingstad in 2010, and Tjønn about Johan Galtung in 2012), cf. section 7 in link. (After the birthday comment about Johan Galtung in 2000, Thorvik sent a letter to the editor-in-chief about it and the 1994 comment about Egil "Drillo" Olsen, cf. (2a) and (2b), with a copy to Hegge (link).)

(8) Aftenposten's treatment of our readers' posts was a shameless abuse of power, which was defended with, among other things, obvious lies (cf. section 7 in link). For example (link), Aftenposten changed the title of our first reader's post about Helge Ingstad without asking, from "Error by Hegge about Ingstad" to "Helge Ingstad didn't find the Apaches". Thus it looked as if our post supported Hegge's lie about Helge Ingstad. This was defended with the obvious lie that Aftenposten "did not [see] it as a controversial change". This - to change a headline on an article, obviously to hide from the readers that a journalist has lied about a man having done something seriously wrong, and give the impression that the article supports the lie - a newspaper can do, without being convicted by PFU (which is the equivalent of the Independent Press Standards Organisation in the UK, cf. (9) below). We had a reader's post about this title change printed in a less read place in Aftenposten, but the condition for printing it was a shameless abuse of power.

(9) On various occasions we tried in vain to get readers' articles printed in the newspapers Dagbladet and the very leftist Klassekampen (link), and to complain to the PFU (link). We should have done both more than we did. That what we did was in vain, shows conditions that are very different from what they should be, cf. e.g. (8). An important reason for this is presumably unhealthy power relations (link and link).

(10) In short:

• (10a) It is possible that we are overestimating the Norwegian press (as before all this we overestimated Hegge and Aftenposten), but we are guessing that the above - reminiscent of Joseph McCarthy's activities in the USA (link) - is among the most shameful chapters in Norwegian press history.
• (10b) It is important to understand how far the distance is, between common decency and what Hegge (and Tjønn and Aftenposten) have done. And it is important to understand that this distance is the result of not only the personal characteristics of those responsible. The distance is perhaps primarily a result of unhealthy power relations:
• (10b1) Power and right easily become one - i.e. power relations influence (in favor of the powerful) the assessments of both what is right/reasonable, and to which deviations from right/reasonable one should react how strongly.
• (10b2) Both the (10b1)-assessments themselves, and the incentives the power relations create, are important reasons for what has happened. This case is therefore an important example of why power relations should be improved (link and link).

Your words about Johan Galtung in the commemoration are example No. 8 of an accusation against a leftist man, and No. 6 against Johan Galtung, for being incorrect.

(11) A particular aspect of your (and Hegge's) accusation, is that you say nothing about what you/Hegge are referring to. This means that no one or few - not us, perhaps not even Johan Galtung - have any idea what you are referring to. And when Thorvik asks what you mean on 14 October, you don't answer.

(12) Your charge is serious. It is within or close to the definition of a defamation in the large Norwegian encyclopedia (cf. link): "Defamation is an act that violates another's sense of honor, or is apt to damage another's good name and reputation, or to expose another to hatred, contempt or loss of trust, which he needs in his position or occupation."

(13) Your combination (a defamation or something similar without specific content), and your failure to reply to me, means: The only way the outside world can check the defamation (or something similar), is if Johan Galtung himself asks what you are referring to, and then comments on this. You are of course aware that Johan Galtung (as far as we know) has never responded to criticism in Aftenposten. The result so far is thus a defamation or something similar, which the outside world has no idea what is the content of, and cannot check.

(14) If this is the final result, it will be your responsibility, and unacceptable:

• (14a) What affects the outside world (and thus also Johan Galtung), the outside world should be able to check (among other things so that the outside world can check whether the outside world's power vis-à-vis Johan Galtung, is being used correctly).
• This is in line with point 1.3 of the Journalism Ethics poster (cf. link): "The press (...) cannot give in to pressure from someone who wants to prevent open debate, free dissemination of information, and free access to sources."
• (14b) Whoever influences the outside world (not Johan Galtung), is responsible for the outside world being able to check the influence (among other things because the influence is the responsibility of the influencer, not Johan Galtung). This is an example that one should not be able to give someone a responsibility, by committing an injustice against that person.
• This is in line with the following from the Danielsen law firm (cf. link): "When assessing whether there is unlawful defamation, a key consideration is whether it is a false defamation, or whether the content of the statement is truthful. If it is claimed that the statement is truthful, it is the person who made the statement, who must provide evidence that the accusation is true."
• (14c) The above-mentioned PFU writes about the Journalism Ethics poster (cf. link): "The ethical norms and the self-righteousness that the press pursues, are primarily [our emphasis] intended to protect individuals from offensive and damaging publicity." This is in line with the following:
• (14c1) The press has an extraordinary power to do an extraordinarily important injustice - undeserved "damaging publicity". In order to minimize the abuse of this power, it goes without saying that not only the victims of the press (who would prefer to avoid discussing their person in public, perhaps partly because the victim knows that if one defends oneself, one will probably be exposed to even more injustice), but also the outside world, should be able to check the press's exercise of power.
• (14c2) This quotation marks the seriousness of both
• what Hegge/Tjønn/Aftenposten have done (and what Dagbladet/Klassekampen/PFU have failed to do), and
• what you have done -
• written a defamation (or something similar) against Johan Galtung,
• who Hegge/Tjønn/Aftenposten cf. the above have done great injustice to before, and 
• where the only justification is a representation of Hegge's credibility which is the opposite of the truth (the extent to which you knew the truth about Hegge's credibility, is unknown to us) (in a reasonable world you would of course know it, and the editor-in-chief would have ensured that Hegge did not weaken his credibility more than once, and of course that would have been the best for Hegge as well).

We therefore suggest that you answer the question on 14 October, i.e. state your/Hegge's sources.

Sincerely

Erik Thorvik and Stig Riise Pettersen