Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.11.2011, Side 6

6
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 17 — 2011
Do y'all think the Icelandic legal system's treatment of Jón Bjarki
makes any sense? At all? Should news media strive to never offend
anyone, or is this a case of 'island mentality'? Your thoughts: letters@
grapevine.is
Iceland | Journalism
AN ICElANDIC MODERN MEDIA INFERNO
The Reykjavík District Court has
once again ruled against DV jour-
nalist Jón Bjarki Magnússon in a
defamation suit. His crime: Quoting
a newspaper article and a court rul-
ing from 1989 in story about a violent
neighbourhood dispute. His sen-
tence: a gross 700,000 ISK in dam-
ages plus 750,000 ISK in legal fees.
We met up with him to discuss the
cases and the rather dismal state of
journalism in Iceland: the modern
media safe haven.
BAD TASTE
Many American readers will prob-
ably be surprised by this case, as
defamation typically requires that
a statement about someone be un-
true. Did you have any idea that you
could be charged with defamation
for something like this?
No, no. I didn’t have a clue. I never
thought it was possible. To quote a court
ruling and an article from the paper that
anyone can find on the Internet... But the
court ruled that because it was an old
case that it wasn’t relevant today.
Right, the ruling states: “It is bad
taste to cite a court ruling from the
year 1989 […] It does not have any-
thing to do with the public today, and
does not add anything to the dis-
cussion about the plaintiff; it simply
blackens her name…” But obviously
when you included the information in
your story, you felt that it was adding
something. What was your thinking?
This particular case, which was all over
the media last summer, involved fighting
neighbours with most of the media por-
traying one couple as violent and the oth-
er, afraid—but you never know what’s true
and what’s not in these kinds of disputes.
Then I got emails about the couple having
been sentenced twice before for attack-
ing people, and in a third case, the father
and son had attacked a security guard at
a shop, and they were just sentenced for
that a few months ago. I found this very
relevant because it showed that there
was a history of brutal violence there.
Basically, a couple and now their chil-
dren have been able to terrorize people
for thirty years without paying anything
close to what I have to pay now for writ-
ing about it.
TAKING OUT JOURNAlISTS ONE BY
ONE
It’s one thing to be sued for some-
thing ridiculous, but did you expect
to get this verdict?
It’s sad, but I don’t really have any faith
in the court system when it comes to
journalists being prosecuted, especially
journalists from my paper. Almost every
month a journalist at DV is sentenced. So
while I found it ridiculous, I thought, well,
of course, this was predictable. There is
something rotten in the court system.
Judges seem to be in favor of journalists
writing stories based on press releases;
digging into things is for the police.
It’s becoming more and more ridicu-
lous. It seems that freedom of expression
is becoming more and more limited. For
instance, there’s a blogger at DV who
wrote an interesting story about Progres-
sive Party Chair Sigmundur Davíð’s father.
He quoted an article in Morgunblaðið
from fifteen years ago, which implicated
him in a financial scandal, and this guy is
suing him for quoting that article.
I’d add that Vilhjálmur Hans Vilhjálms-
son, the lawyer who prosecuted me in
these two cases, has been attacking DV
in every way possible. My theory is that
he finds material, calls the “victims” and
says, ‘I’ll take this for you pro bono.’ I have
experience with that lawyer because he
called me and wanted to be my lawyer
when I quit DV for some time a couple
of years ago. So he is my former lawyer
and a year later he sues me in two other
cases.
So he’s like an ambulance chaser…
Do you think he called the neigh-
bours in this case?
Yeah I think he called them, and I think
he called the Danish guy. The Danish guy
who won the case against me in July was
in Denmark. He doesn’t know anything
about DV; he doesn’t read the Icelandic
media, so how would he know?
[Interview was interrupted by a passer-by
who stopped to tell Jón Bjarki how hor-
ribly he was being treated and wished
him luck.]
Do journalists think about these
kinds of legal consequences when
they are working on a story?
A journalist at Morgunblaðið told me he
had been working on a story based on
official documents, and he stopped be-
cause he was afraid. I think a lot of jour-
nalists are thinking, ‘What? We cannot
quote official documents.’ But there is a
new media law that was passed in April. I
was being tried under the old print media
law from 1956, and I think there are some
greater protections for journalists now.
THE MEDIA FAIlED THE PEOPlE
Following the crash in 2008, the me-
dia was criticised for not being criti-
cal enough. Why is there this lack of
critical reporting in the Icelandic me-
dia? Is it getting better? Worse?
It’s getting worse. Morgunblaðið has be-
come a propaganda machine for certain
powers. Fréttablaðið is the same; you get
it for free and advertisers pay for it. DV
has been and is good in many ways, but
it’s difficult to keep a paper going when
you are facing the reality of a small coun-
try with few buyers and the paper is be-
ing attacked from different directions.
And you experienced this… your
editor pulled a story about former
landsbanki manager Sigurjón Þ.
Árnason due to ‘external pressures.’
How often do you think that hap-
pens?
People have always talked about how the
media can be influenced like this, but I
had never known of a concrete example.
And then I had it. I had always thought
that DV was the most independent, and
then this was even happening there.
It’s difficult to know how often it hap-
pens because there are many ways to
stop things from going to print, though it
doesn’t come to light so clearly as in this
case.
Maybe my editor trusted me, I don’t
know, but he told me that powerful indi-
viduals had threatened to kill the paper
if we published the story that I wrote
about a former manager at Landsbanki
who was still working there, and nobody
knew what the fuck he was doing. I had
been working as a journalist for five, six
months and I thought, ‘this is ridiculous.’
So I asked to meet with him, and I had
a recording device on me and recorded
everything he told me. I had it in my room
for three weeks, just sitting there, until I
exploded. I told him I couldn’t work at this
paper; I had to tell this story.
I posted the story on the Internet. At
the time everything was collapsing and
I thought it was a crucial time; people
needed this information. I called it, “Við
erum að bregðast ykkur núna,” (“We are
failing you now”), playing on an edito-
rial written by one of the editors: “Við
brugðumst ykkur” (“We failed you”), in
which he promised to do better. So in my
article I asked him to come forth and re-
veal who had stopped the article.
He defended himself, saying that Jón
Bjarki is a young journalist—I was 24—etc.
etc. And then when it looked like it was
dying because it was just my word against
his, Kastljósið called me, and I told them
that I had one thing… this recording of
the editor explaining to me why the story
was pulled. So they asked me to come to
an interview and they played it.
My editor actually re-hired me a year
later and we’re good friends. I think he
respected my decision to do it, though it
was unfortunate how it happened. And
maybe this whole thing has deterred
people from trying to influence him be-
cause there is the possibility that it will
come out.
THE ICElANDIC IRONY
It seems ironic that Iceland is work-
ing on progressive legislation like
the Icelandic Modern Media Initia-
tive with the goal of making Iceland
some kind of media safe haven when
the reality for journalists in Iceland is
quite the contrary…
Exactly. It’s part of the Icelandic irony.
Since the collapse we have been trying
to create this image that everything is
going well. There was this conference
co-sponsored by the IMF, and now we
are going to be an example of how the
IMF can help countries. And then some
very interesting people introduced IMMI
[International Modern Media Institute] to
the parliament and it’s used to paint an
image of this beautiful media haven when
the reality is that individual journalists are
being taken down.
Okay. You’ve now been sentenced
twice in one year. Was this the last
straw? Are you considering a new
career in something safe—like PR?
No, not now. I don’t know really. You can
think of it as a just fight, but it’s so ridicu-
lous that I don’t want to take part. It’s like
a farce.
It takes a toll on people. First, getting
the letter informing you that you are go-
ing to be sued, knowing that you will have
to deal with this for two to three years and
now if I decide to appeal, it’s another year.
It’s also a lot of money. Worse case sce-
nario, if I can’t pay, I would possibly have
to declare bankruptcy, and of course that
would be bad, but I wouldn’t lose any-
thing because I don’t own anything. But
then I’m probably blacklisted at the bank.
So it’s possibly influencing my possibili-
ties of getting a loan, having a credit card.
It affects the little things in life… first
you feel angry, like you are being at-
tacked, but then after that you just start
to laugh. You can’t spend days, weeks,
and months being angry; you just have to
laugh. That’s where I’m at now. I’m happy
with the responses I’ve been getting from
people and that’s more important than
whatever the judge says.
In Iceland journalists can be prosecuted for citing a public court case. Yes, in Iceland, that could be ‘defamatory’…
Words
Anna Andersen
Photo
Hvalreki
“Since the collapse we have been trying to create this image
that everything is going well. There was this conference
co-sponsored by the IMF, and now we are going to be an
example of how the IMF can help countries. And then some
very interesting people introduced IMMI [International
Modern Media Institute] to the parliament and it’s used
to paint an image of this beautiful media haven when the
reality is that individual journalists are being taken down.”