‘Fear is my weapon’

As the title more than suggests, taken from Alistair MacLean’s successful 1961 novel (and later film), this text is to be about fear. As the original title tells us: “Fear is the key”.

For what is going on, right before our eyes? A new theatre of fog? Surely a handful of oral formulations by Hans Rustad in the homely “forest podcast” are not the problem, are they? So what is it, then? Why does an almost united pack in the Norwegian press and the media in general want to distance itself from Document and preferably see Hans Rustad thrown out of the Norwegian Editors’ Association?

The Ugly Duckling

Well, because they fear Document. They are becoming terrified, hysterically nervous, because they have once and for all been exposed for all eternity, with their trousers down around their ankles and their backsides bare. That is the issue.

That is why Document is the real target, the apparent “ugly duckling”, which the establishment media fear will one day turn into a mighty swan.

Collapsed like a house of cards

Ever since its inception in 2003, Document has been condemned to perpetual exclusion by Norway’s mainstream press. I do not need to mention which channels, newspapers or media houses. Everyone knows whom I am talking about.

And several of them were represented when Document’s eternally young and courageous editor-in-chief Hans Rustad faced the power-constructed chorus of howls all alone and defended himself against, for example, VG’s editor-in-chief Gard Steiro, the straw men from Filter Nyheter and Morgenbladet, and, of course, NRK, where Steinar Suvatne suddenly appeared as debate editor.

And Dagen, of course, represented by Vebjørn Selbekk, one of the many who definitely do not support Rustad and Document’s journalism, but who oppose expulsion. “For the sake of openness”, you understand, wherever that may once have collapsed like a house of cards.

Chose the side of power

When Document emerged as a lone dissenting voice in the Norwegian press at the beginning of the 2000s, while media people simultaneously changed skin (and crew) and the “journalist” was upgraded in the hierarchy of esteem from being an important but shabby watchdog for the people and instead became the extended arm of power, there was no longer any room for openness, and there was absolutely no room for Document as a critical publication. According to those in power, who from then on were, and remain, synonymous with the established Norwegian press.

But Document went against the current and stood its ground, challenged Goliath and survived.

Emotions and hysteria

“Take away their press subsidies”, they shriek in uncontrolled falsetto, as though just over eight million kroner since 2023 were so much to be deprived of – NOK 2.8 million annually. Morgenbladet – essentially a dreary rag of a weekly newspaper entirely devoid of surprises, a newspaper nobody notices is there – gets NOK 31.5 million.

No: NRK, VG, Dagbladet, Vårt Land, Morgenbladet, Bergens Tidende, Klassekampen (NOK 45 million in press subsidies last year), Dagen, Fædrelandsvennen and God knows how many others – they fear Document, and now their trouser legs are trembling so violently that the matter has spun completely out of control and mostly resembles the left’s Trump hysteria, characterised by fear.

Document has the weapon

It really is a cowardly and embarrassing wave of attacks that has now come staggering towards Document – with straw men as front-line soldiers, for example Harald Klungtveit at Filter Nyheter – whatever that is, by the way, and the trio of alleged “editors” at a weekly newspaper (and a website) that must have four (!) overpaid editors in order to spend NOK 30 million in press subsidies sensibly!? What do you make of that?

Obviously blatant and classic Norwegian corruption, this, and thus I can without further ado brand them journalistic criminals and parasites on society’s backside. But more importantly: There is only one detail that matters here when the issue is boiled down to its core: “Fear is my weapon”. And now it is Document – and Document alone – that can say it: “Fear is the key”. Document holds this weapon.

The readers have responded

To the extent that this is a real battle and not merely a dark and dirty game orchestrated by grey men of power and the deep state (yes, we know who they are), Document is destined to win. Clearly and overwhelmingly. Rustad showed that on Tuesday. He was completely alone, but stood like a rock and kept his composure – even after he was consistently denied the opportunity to complete a single line of reasoning.

And now, of course, the readers have responded. New subscribers and readers are pouring into Document, which MBL (the Norwegian Media Businesses’ Association) will not touch with a bargepole either. That is why Document remains unlisted – without readership or circulation figures, while the fact is that the newspaper is now approaching the ten or fifteen most-read in the country.

Yes, I can do arithmetic, and even have 30 credits in statistics/mathematics, a subject entirely absent among all employees of the mainstream press. No one there can do arithmetic. They merely appear to be full of themselves. But in reality, they have long since pissed themselves. Because they are terrified – because their hour has come. Fear has taken them, fear has them in its grip now; “Fear is the key”. And now it is Document that holds the keys.