Ölandsbladet
For this case study, I decided to look into a newspaper from Öland, Sweden, called the Ölandsbladet. Öland is an island off the southern end of Sweden and is a relatively small community with a population of about 25,000. I was inspired to study this community newspaper because this is where my great-grandpa migrated to the U.S. from. Growing up, I have always had a strong interest in where my family came from, and this project became a great opportunity to do more research and finally get to communicate with someone from this city.
So, as I noted above, the Ölandsbladet is a community style newspaper that has strong roots within the city of Öland. The paper itself was founded in 1867 with the idea that it was to be considered politically independent while remaining proud of its heritage. They are fairly active within social media including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn where they post just about every day and continue to act as a “part” of the community rather than merely a reporter or observer.
Throughout my studies of the Ölandsbladet, I remained in contact with Peter Boström, Chief Editor and Publisher, through a series of emails, and though there was a language barrier, we were able to muster through and exchange questions and answers.
The first thing that I wanted to find out about the news organization was what it really meant for them to be “politically independent.” “When I became chief editor, the boarder made it clear to me, that the only political focus I should have was to ‘be a voice of Öland,’” said Boström. “(A) Long time ago, Ölandsbladet was close to the Agrarian Party. But that was former owners and more than 40 years ago.”
What I believe he meant by this was that the newspaper wants to focus on the issues important in Öland and not the focus of Swedish politicians.
After comparing the Ölandsbladet with the Duluth News Tribune, or any other local community paper in America for that matter, one of the first things that I noticed was that I never noticed any hard news — nothing violent or corrupt or anything of that nature. This community, from the perspective of the Ölandsbladet, was so incredibly positive and happy. I questioned Boström about this and also asked if there was a directive to stay away from “hard news.”
“We report what happens,” explained Boström. “It is as simple as that. Öland is an island blessed from most crime and violence. But if there is a murder (or) robbery we do write about it!”
While observing the Ölandsbladet over the course of a few weeks, I started to see a trend within the newspaper that showed community pride and a strong desire to keep their roots connected with the past. So, I asked what style of content is most important to publish for his readers.
“When we sort of stand up for Öland,” said Boström. “When we ask the right questions to the right persons in leading positions, mostly on the mainland. In a way, we kind of unite the island.”
I found this statement to be especially important and motivating for me as an aspiring journalist. The reason I say this is because it is so incredibly important for journalists to stay true to their trade for the moral implications that it can have on a community and themselves. And to hear this from such a successful journalist from another country just simply made me step back and think for a moment.
Finally, I wanted to find out about how their paper has been affected by the implementation of online usage, and as expected with almost every news outlet, the effects showed similarities.
“Fifteen years ago, we had 9,000 subscribers (which was an) all-time record, now we have 7,900,” said Boström. “But if we talk about readers, we have never had as much as we have today. As we today also have the website olandsbladet.se, with 15,000 visitors every week. The e-papermodel is becoming more and more popular even amongst our readers.”
This does seem to be a natural trend that we have seen throughout the course of this class. It’s reassuring to see how constantly adaptable journalists around the world continue to be.
For me personally, not only this project, but the entire semester within this class has opened my eyes and gave me a better understanding for not just journalism, but sub-categories within journalism and how to see even deeper than just subject matter. I definitely feel that I have a more solid understanding of what I will come across in the future.
