In the Soviet Union, the media landscape was dominated by the two major nationwide daily newspapers Pravda and Izvestia, and to some extent by the youth newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. These state-controlled newspapers were from first to last page filled with lies, omissions and distortions, all of which had the purpose of glorifying the Soviet system and concealing its many faults and deficiencies. Soviet citizens knew perfectly well what they were confronted with, and a tradition arose whereby the family and trusted friends would gather in the evening around the kitchen table, where, over a bottle of vodka and a glass of pickled garlic cucumbers, they exchanged the real news of everyday life.
In Denmark we do not have Pravda and Izvestia, but we have something that is almost as good, namely DR and TV2, which, like the media in the former Soviet Union, are state-owned and state-operated. All opinion polls confirm that a large majority of journalists vote red, which influences editing and the selection of news and commentary. And more is coming from the same source. Danmarks Journalisthøjskole is a Marxist barracks, where Enhedslisten, according to opinion polls, is the dominant party among the recruits.
The strong dominance of the two state television channels over several decades has not only shifted the political attitudes of voters towards the centre-left, but also those of the formerly bourgeois newspapers, which now form part of a strong media phalanx that supports the climate myth of global warming caused by man-made CO2 emissions, praises the catastrophic green transition, and spreads hatred against bourgeois America, Jews, and, fundamentally, bourgeois parties in Europe such as AfD, Rassemblement National and the Dutch Freedom Party – notwithstanding that all these movements have party programmes firmly anchored in constitutions and fundamental laws. The totalitarian Islamic social system, to which every Muslim has submitted, is exempt from criticism and scepticism in the Danish media universe.
DR and TV2 are always on guard, and at the slightest criticism of editorial uniformity they can produce a number of opinion polls clearly documenting that media users and voters express great trust in the news dissemination on Danish television. The Danes are thus content to swallow what they are served, and have no need to separate chaff from grain over a bottle of vodka and pickled cucumbers. The national re-education has succeeded completely, so that a survey in connection with the presidential election in the United States in November showed that more than 90 per cent of the Danish voters surveyed would have voted for Kamala Harris, who, in addition to being unsympathetic, lazy and incompetent, has also been ranked in opinion polls as the worst vice president in the history of the United States. As it is written on the reunification stone in Bredebro near Tønder: “A people can never perish who do not will it themselves.” But we Danes evidently do, provided we are secure, and there is peace and quiet in the backyard.
And then, of course, it is pleasant that we are in good company in a large common media family that thinks and says the same. Danish media are closely connected with the American, British and Nordic centre-left media, all of which have the correct opinions about President Trump, the climate, the green transition, Jews and the systemic racism directed against Muslims. Professor G.L.H. Svendsen from Syddansk Universitet has demonstrated in a study that Danish journalists in 90 per cent of the cases examined exclusively use left-wing sources in their work. We lie as we have made our bed, and we are well satisfied with it.
How are the remnants of liberal-bourgeois Denmark to extricate themselves from the red media trap and obtain fresh air in news dissemination? It is a difficult task, as bourgeois Denmark has largely been defeated and exists only in a few pockets of resistance grouped around liberal and conservative online newspapers such as Kontrast, 24NYT, Document and Den Korte Avis. Here one finds much sober, credible and courageous quality journalism and analysis, but the funds are few and the opposition overwhelming. Wealthy bourgeois foundations do not wish to put their ears in the machine and offend the government and the media monopolies by supporting genuine bourgeois news dissemination. Politicians, after all, want control over the media, either by owning them or through extensive media subsidies, which is almost as good. Everyone has seen what the politicians did to Radio Mercur and Radio 24/7, and they are ready to do it again if attempts arise to establish a free, nationwide radio or television channel.
There are surely many outside the centre-left spectrum who wonder why, as television viewers, one is confined to the Marxist CNN, as well as the equally left-leaning BBC, NBC and Sky News as foreign news sources. Why do the cable television companies not offer Fox News, Newsmax or OAN as a bourgeois antidote to the red news stream? A private contact in one of our large cable television companies explains that this is largely a political question. It is understood that the entire Danish media-industrial complex, in harmony with Christiansborg, would regard the detested Fox News in the Danish cable network as sabotage of “the Danish model” of freedom of expression. And this despite the fact that Fox News is now the largest and most popular television news channel in the United States. Politicians and established media would regard it as treason if Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Jesse Waters were suddenly to gain daily access to Danish living rooms. Since the operation of the cable television companies depends on a number of public licences, the industry – like the recipients of media subsidies – has chosen to adapt itself.
We must therefore make do with the crisis-stricken CNN, which is haemorrhaging viewers in the United States because they are weary of the channel’s endless lies and fake news. A consumer survey from 2025 showed that CNN during daytime now has fewer viewers than the H&G channel (House & Garden). If one is an IT-literate consumer in Denmark, however, one can subscribe to Fox via one’s iPhone and then “cast” it to the television screen. But that is a solution for the advanced. The rest of us must make do with our daily Pravda and Izvestia.