csmonitor.com: Israeli officials seek Swedish government condemnation of organ theft story

Christian Science Monitor reports on the ‘blood libel’ charge made by Israeli politicians and journalists against a Swedish daily newspaper, Aftonbladet.

“In the view from Jerusalem, the answer to the controversy is simple: the Swedish government should condemn Aftonbladet, the tabloid which last week printed an article suggesting that Israel snatched the organs of Palestinians who died in their custody.

“In the view from Stockholm, the answer is equally simple: Israel should accept that in a democracy, newspapers are free to print what they wish, and that it isn’t the place of governments to interfere.”

Full post at this link…

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Aftonbladet rolls out social network for readers

Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet has soft launched a new community for users called Snack, Media Culpa reports.

It is hoped the site, which lets users share comments, images and videos, will be populated by readers acting under their own names rather than anonymous pseudonyms.

According to Media Culpa, the newspaper will soon open up commenting facilities across its online articles to encourage even more user interaction with the site.

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Aftonbladet to offer readers social network style profiles

Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet is to launch a ‘Facebook-like’ community for its online readers, the Media Culpa blog reports.

According to the site, readers will be given user profile pages on which they can leave comments about articles – a feature not currently available on the main site

It is hoped that the service, which has been delayed by security issues, will be launched in two months.

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Facebook: Online newspaper’s biggest enemy

Interesting post over at Media Culpa asking if Swedish daily Aftonbladet’s biggest threat is now Facebook rather than Expressen, its next nearest newspaper rival online.

(I have had to rely on Media Cupla as the source, rather than the original post Mindpark, as I don’t speak Swedish – so apologies for linking to a post about a post)

Henrik Torstenssons draws out a second point to note. Henrik points to another story (again in Swedish – same problem, so I can’t confirm this is the case, although have faith in Henrik) in which Kalle Jungkvist, editor-in-chief of Aftonbladet, said his paper ran a focus group with people in their twenties, who told him the choice for young Swedes was either Aftonbladet or Facebook for their idle surfing time.

How long before Facebook is getting newspaper execs in the UK worried?

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