For decades, Icelandic media was interwoven with party politics. That “system” began to unravel in the 1960s and 1970s, but the party press lasted well into the 1990s (Harðarson, 2008). Today, there are no formal links between media and political parties. To enhance professionalism, journalists and their union have sought to introduce codes and internal rules to keep political and economic powerholders at bay (see Indicators F5 & F6 – Company rules against internal and external influence on newsroom/editorial staff).
The board of the public broadcasting service RÚV is appointed by the parliament, in accordance with the parties’ strength. It was a forum of heated party political battles for many years. However, in the last two or three decades, board meetings have become more balanced and focused on the overall running of the company, rather than nit-picking about the tone of news coverage or discussions and guests in news-related talk-shows. The most prominent example of a board member defending his party in news coverage came in 2015, when RÚV and other media houses covered the ties of then Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson to an offshore tax-haven company (registered to his wife). His party’s representative on RÚV’s board criticised RÚV’s news coverage on this – but there is no indication that this outcry had any influence on the coverage. RÚV’s board consists of nine members: five from the three-party majority (the conservative Independence Party, the centrist Progressive Party, and the socialist Left-Green Movement) and four from opposition parties.
As for private media, today’s media market has progressively parted ways with erstwhile political affiliations. However, there have been at least two exceptions of late, where politically labelled individuals have sought to invest in media outlets or companies with semi-political objectives.
The newspaper Morgunblaðið is majority-owned by a group of investors from the fishing industry today. These companies want to uphold a national fisheries policy that supports their interests and stand against Iceland joining the EU. This has been consistent with that of the conservative Independence Party that has for the most part dominated Icelandic politics for decades. Morgunblaðið’s owners hired as one of two editors Davíð Oddsson in 2009. Oddsson had been the party’s chairman and prime minister of Iceland for a long time. Three other well-known political-party personalities hold sizeable shares (although not a majority) in Morgunblaðið’s mother company, Árvakur. In another case from a few years back, some individuals stemming from the centrist Progressive Party sought to acquire an influence in media. Most notable of them was Björn Ingi Hrafnsson, former Reykjavík municipal council member for the party, and Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, former political advisor to the former prime minister. Hrafnsson became influential in at least two other media outlets but financially over-reached within them, with the plans ending in bankruptcy.
There are at least two instances of weaker political connections holding shares in media companies that are worth mentioning. First is Vilhjálmur Þorsteinsson, who is a 17.1 per cent shareholder in the online newspaper Kjarninn and a member of the Social Democratic Party, though not currently in the leadership. Second is Helgi Magnússon, the new owner of Torg (publisher of Fréttablaðið and DV), who has ties with the centre-right party Viðreisn and is indeed considered one of its founders. Magnússon proclaimed after buying Torg that he was an investor and would not seek to influence the journalistic output (Júlíusson, 2017; Rögnvaldsson, 2019).
Active or former leading politicians are not major shareholders or board members in other leading news media houses. And there is no doubt that for these media outlets, it is considered important to hold at bay any attempts of political influence on editorial output, as can be seen in their editorial policies and internal rules, as well as the NUIJ’s CoE. The same applies to influence from economical stakeholders. But even if such rules and policies call for a strict separation of party politics and economic interests from editorial work, it seems clear that such factors can have an impact, direct or indirect (Ólafsson, 2019).
It does seem plain and visible that the powerful owners of Morgunblaðið, who comprise majority shareholders from the fisheries industry, aim to uphold their interests within the paper’s op-eds, at least. Such an exercise of influence by shareholders in editorial work within Morgunblaðið is the most evident among all media outlets. The ownership of Sýn (Channel 2, several television and radio stations, and online visir.is) is much more distributed, with no clear majority owner. The biggest shareholders are pension funds, banks, and insurance companies; however, none of them has a share larger than 13.6 per cent.
All major Icelandic media outlets have formal editorial policies, in accordance with the Media Law, as well as in-house rules of ethics or conduct. The emphasis on editorial independence and thwarting outside influence is clear, and Icelandic journalists resist such influence. On the other hand, RÚV’s board is politically appointed, Morgunblaðið’s has ties to the conservative Independence Party and fishing industry giants, and the media organisation Torg, owned by an investor with political ties, also undermines the independence of its media outlets. The economic situation of private news media in Iceland is also of grave concern. Most private news media companies have been run at a loss or with very meagre returns for years, and some have lost hundreds of millions ISK. This is recognised in the government’s new bill on public support for private media, but as mentioned above, the bill has not been approved.
