“This is not healthy”

“I am saddened that we have reached the point where there is only one television news bulletin,” Iceland’s Justice Minister Þorbjörg Sigríður Gunnlaugsdóttir said after Sýn ended its evening news broadcasts.

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I am saddened that we have reached the point where there is only one television news bulletin. A few years ago, we also reached the point where there is only one printed newspaper in Iceland.

She noted that Iceland had also reached the point, several years ago, of having only one printed newspaper. Gunnlaugsdóttir said she had valued having two evening television news programs and considered it important for more newspapers to be published.

“This is not healthy, it is not healthy for public debate,” she said. In a small and homogeneous society, she added, the situation could be more dangerous than in places with greater breadth and more varied voices.

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This is not healthy, it is not healthy for public debate, and in a small and homogeneous society I think this is even more dangerous than where there are more dimensions and more voices in the debate.

The minister said the way people obtain news is changing, including along generational lines. She pointed to social media’s expanding role, warning that if social platforms become equal to traditional media as news sources, “obvious challenges and obvious dangers” follow.

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And if social media have begun to stand alongside the traditional media, that brings obvious challenges and obvious dangers.