Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.08.2012, Blaðsíða 14

14
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2012
Iceland | Journalism
A legal maelstrom that made its
way all the way to the European
Court of Human Rights erupted
after journalists Björk Eiðsdót-
tir and Erla Hlynsdóttir were
charged with defamation, for
writing articles about the strip
clubs Goldfinger and Strawber-
ries in 2007 and 2009, respec-
tively. They in turn sued the Ice-
landic State and, in a rare turn
of events, won their cases. The
Grapevine met up with the two
to talk about what it’s like to be a
journalist in Iceland.
Prostitution, Strippers And
Strawberries
What led the two of you to dig into this
story?
Björk Eiðsdóttir: Strip clubs were a hot
debate at the time. Everyone knew there
was something fishy going on inside
these clubs, but nobody was willing to
step up and tell the entire story. At the
time I was working for the magazine Vi-
kan. We were really interested in trying
to get some girls to tell the true story. So
we contacted a few who worked for Gold-
finger at the time. The owner [the late
Ásgeir Þór Davíðsson] agreed, and the
girls we met told a totally different story
from what we knew was true. They said
that everything was great. Of course, the
owner sat there with them.
The owner was present for the interview?
BE: Yes. So, the story was totally ruined,
but we published it anyway. Then the
week after that story was published, a
girl contacted me who said that every-
thing in this story was bullshit. She told
me her entire story. She had worked for a
few clubs, Goldfinger among them. She
said that there was prostitution going on,
and that the owner was pimping the girls
out. I called the owner and asked him if
he wanted to comment, and he was very
quick to say that she was lying. But then
he said, ‘Björk, I really hope that nothing
bad happens to you if you publish this
story.’ And I published that as well.
Erla Hlynsdóttir: My story is very dif-
ferent from hers, but it was also about
something that was going on within
these clubs. The owner of Strawberries,
Viðar Þór Friðriksson, contacted me,
and said that he had been attacked at
his strip club by a man who is known to
have worked as a handrukkari [a general
term for a “muscle man,” an enforcer
who collects debts, usually with threats
of violence or actual violence], and that
this handrukkari had been working for
Ásgeir Þór.
So I met Viðar, and he had obviously
been attacked; he had a black eye, and he
presented a medical report that showed
that he had been to the emergency room.
He wanted me to just publish all that,
and I told him I couldn’t, that I needed
to speak to the other party, and to the
owner of Goldfinger.
I had a lot of trouble getting in touch
with this handrukkari, but when I fi-
nally reached him, it was his words that
I ended up getting a conviction for. He
said he hadn’t attacked the owner of
Strawberries, and that he would never
do such a thing because the owner had
been spreading rumours that he had
members of the Lithuanian mafia in his
club. The owner of Strawberries—not
the one I was talking to—sued me. They
looked at her case [gesturing to Björk]
and saw that you could sue journalists
for quoting someone correctly, and de-
cided to do the same.
BE: Yeah, the owner of Goldfinger start-
ed by suing the girl that I interviewed.
But in the lower courts, I was a witness
for that case, and I was asked, ‘Are you
the author of the article?’ and I said,
‘Yes, I am.’ I had a feeling that I had said
something wrong, so I corrected myself,
saying that I was not the author of her
words, that I was the author of the ar-
ticle, quoting her words. But the lawyers
met in chambers, and when they came
back, they said that she was off the hook.
They were now just going for me and the
editor. They had found the loophole in
the law.
“Can They Get Me For This?”
So, for future reference, what you’re sup-
posed to say is, “No, I’m not the author of
the article”?
BE: Right, I should have said, ‘No, she is
the author.’
EH: And that’s what I did. We had the
same lawyer as Björk, so I knew what I
was supposed to say beforehand. I was
also asked, ‘Are yowu the author?’ and
I said, ‘No, I am not the author. I wrote
this.’
This goes back to the old law—it just
says, you can choose who you sue in a
news story, that you can choose to sue
the journalist. It says “the author,” and it
becomes a matter of interpretation over
who is the author of the words.
BE: We won the case in the lower courts,
but then it went to the Supreme Court.
And it was kind of obvious from day one
that they were going to convict us.
So how did your editors react? Did they
maybe want to back off from covering
strip clubs, or did they want to go after
them harder?
BE: Definitely not harder. I’m a lot more
careful. I have lawyers read over my arti-
cles if I’m not sure, you know, ‘Can they
get me for this?’
EH: But there have been articles in the
news that journalists haven’t put their
names on because of cases like ours.
Blacklisted
Do you think the way the system is today
puts journalists on the defensive when it
comes to doing any kind of investigative
piece?
BE: I think so. Even when they make
new laws, there are loopholes. Journal-
ists are definitely on the defensive. You
have to be careful. I don’t know any
journalists who’d be able to pay this kind
of money from their salaries. Everyone
knows journalists aren’t very well paid.
EH: Because I didn’t have any as-
sets, I was put on a credit “blacklist” at
the banks. You can’t get loans, credit
cards—you can’t do anything. The Jour-
nalist Union of Iceland stepped in and
put a small down payment on this, just
so I wouldn’t be on this blacklist.
Yeah, I was about to ask—where was the
journalists’ union in all this?
EH: They helped us go to the ECHR [Eu-
ropean Court of Human Rights].
BE: In my case it was the publishing
company and the journalists’ union that
paid for my case to go there. So the dam-
ages we’re getting paid have now already
been spent. My case took three years to
get a ruling.
EH: Yeah, we’re both single moms, and
everyone thinks it’s so great that we
got all these millions, but… we didn’t
[laughs].
BE: But what led to this going all the way
to Europe was that everyone was suing
journalists at the time. People realised
they could get money from this. So some-
thing had to be done. It just couldn’t go
on. Everyone was afraid to write.
EH: Of course, you know, I can’t just
write something you said about her
without anything to back it up. But the
ECHR ruled that in cases where you
have something of great societal impor-
tance—this was a huge topic at the time,
these strip clubs—that there are journal-
istic protections.
BE: These people that we were inter-
viewing had spoken to the media before,
talking about this very subject. Ásgeir
Þór had been in the media many times,
saying, “No, no, there’s no prostitution
in my clubs.” He had been a part of the
discussion many times.
A Good Country For
Journalists?
Do you think that this ruling will have an
impact on Icelandic journalism?
EH: I think so. I feel like we can do
something more now.
BE: And of course there was the re-
sponse we got from all of our colleagues,
you know; they were just relieved. Just to
know that there is a higher court—that
it doesn’t stop here. And I think the gov-
ernment response has also been posi-
tive.
Do you think Iceland is a good country
for journalists, in comparison to other
European countries?
EH: No, I don’t think it’s a good country
for journalists.
BE: Apart from this case, there’s also a
lack of resources. You don’t have a lot of
time or money to do real investigative
journalism.
EH: Investigative journalism is going
downhill in Iceland. There isn’t enough
money. There isn’t enough staff. It af-
fects the quality of the journalism and it
affects the information that the public is
able to receive.
“
Strip clubs were a hot de-
bate at the time. Everyone
knew there was something
fishy going on inside these
clubs, but nobody was will-
ing to step up and tell the
entire story.„
Truth Costs An interview with two journalists
who sued the Icelandic State (and won)
Words by Paul Fontaine. Photo by Alísa Kalyanova.
MEET THE PRESS
Björk Eiðsdóttir,
now the editor
of Séð og Heyrt
magazine
What did she write?
“My Life Was Threatened,”
an interview with an Icelandic girl who
had worked as a stripper at Goldfinger,
among other places, published by the
magazine Vikan in 2007. The inter-
viewee said that prostitution was being
engaged in at the club Goldfinger, and
that the owner was acting as a pimp.
What happened?
Initially, Goldfinger sued the interview-
ee, but a technical loophole allowed
the club to go after Björk and her editor
instead. While the case was defeated in
lower court, the Supreme Court ruled in
favour of the club.
Erla Hlynsdóttir,
currently work-
ing for Stöð
2 (Channel 2
news)
What did she write?
“Strip King Confronts,” an article that
appeared in the magazine DV in 2009.
In the article, the owner of the strip
club Strawberries says he was attacked
by hired muscle working for the owner
of competitor Goldfinger. The hired
muscle, in turn, denied the allegation,
saying he’d never attack the owner
of Strawberries because he’d been
spreading a rumour that the Lithuanian
mafia hangs out at his club.
What happened?
The owner of Strawberries sued Erla
for defamation of character, and won in
the lower court. Erla was not allowed to
appeal without special permission, be-
cause the amount she had to pay was
deemed too low to justify an appeal.
THE FINAL VERDICT
The Icelandic Journalist Union and the
respective publishers of the journal-
ists decided to take the matter up with
the European Court of Human Rights
(ECHR) in 2009. After about three
years of legal work, the court ruled in
favour of the journalists, and ordered
the Icelandic government to pay them
damages.
Why?
The court ruled that they were “not
convinced by the argument, advanced
by the Icelandic Government, that Ms
Eidsdottir’s portrayal of the strip club
owner and the subject matter of Ms
Hlynsdottir’s article had not been nec-
essary contributions to a public debate.
It noted that well before the publication
of the two articles there had been a
public debate in the Icelandic media on
the tightening of strip club regulations
or the banning of such clubs. There was
thus no doubt that the articles, seen as
a whole, related to a matter of serious
public concern. That consideration,
however, had not carried any sway in
the reasoning of the Icelandic courts.”
In other words, you can’t punish a
journalist for quoting someone cor-
rectly, least of all when they’re writing
an article on an important societal
topic.