The Media Liability Act of 1991 states that “the content and conduct of the media shall be in accordance with sound press ethics” (Pressenævnet, 2013: para. 1). The press ethics are written down in the “Advisory rules of sound press ethics” and were last revised in 2013 and are under the supervision of the Danish Press Council. However, new online news media must actively choose to register to be supervised by the Danish Press Council. While some have chosen to do so, some smaller alternative news sites have not. Overall, however, most Danish news media are supervised by the Press Council (Blach-Ørsten et al., 2015) and respect its rulings.
In 2019, the Press Council received 201 complaints about breaches of the sound press ethics. In 2018, that number was at 160. Only 21 per cent of the 201 complaints led to criticism from the Press Council (Pressenævnet, 2019). The complaints were about almost all types of media, with one tabloid and one public service radio station having the most complaints in 2019. In general, most complaints concern crime reporting or financial reporting (Blach-Ørsten et al., 2015). Our respondents confirmed that there is a high degree of focus on the sound press ethics, and that this focus is probably stronger now than it was previously.
