The leadership of the Danish online tabloid B.T. has been criticised in a letter by its employees’ union.
In the letter, which was first published by the independent outlet Frihedsbrevet on Tuesday, employees accuse the leadership of undermining editorial freedom and political independence.
B.T. is a generally national-conservative tabloid that is owned by Berlingske Media which also owns the newspaper Berlingske and Weekendavisen.
“Breaching basic journalistic principles”
In the letter, the employees start off by writing that, “We believe that editorial freedom and independence have been continuously undermined by management decisions and the management style at the newspaper.”
After that, they go on to list five specific grievances to exemplify this.
Here, they allege that journalists are told to use the tabloid’s own opinion makers as sources to news articles.
They also note that employees, including during internal job interviews, are being asked into their own political views to ensure they hold certain ideological values.
The third point mentioned is that the journalistic process is dictated by ideology, with an example noting that a journalist was asked to look into bad-news stories about the red bloc rather than the blue bloc.
The employees also suggest that poor judgment had been shown by leadership when a prominent personality “speaks at the Danish People’s Party’s (Dansk Folkeparti) conference and embraces its politics”. This being a reference to debate editor Joachim B. Olsen doing that last month.
The fifth grievance is a note that all the four previous noted impact the wellbeing of employees.
“Not a declaration of war”
The letter does soften a bit towards its closing, noting that it is not, “a declaration of war against the leadership, which we acknowledge has contributed with a necessary economic turnaround.”
The current editor-in-chief Simon Richard Nielsen has led the editorial side of the tabloid since 2023, taking over shortly after the media went exclusively digital. In his time, the tabloid has had increasing success and relevance in the political discussion.
The tabloid has been the centre of controversy for its openly partisan debate content, including the podcast Borgerlig Tabloid where Olsen often shares his own opinion, supporting remigration and arguing there are too many Muslims in Denmark.
In a comment to Ekstra Bladet, Nielsen said of his employees following the letter, “Honestly, I’m disappointed in them, and I’m very puzzled by the timing of this letter.
“The thing about these sorts of letters is that they are a form of external communication.
“They also send a message to the outside world, and I think it’s unfortunate that it has become necessary to involve the outside world with concerns about our editorial freedom, concerns that I can reject completely and outright.”