Sunday, July 20, 2008

English news in Scandinavia

With its rapidly greying work force, it has been some time since the European labour market has opened its doors, even if just a symbolic inch, to immigrant workers. It is my perception however (unbolstered by statistics) that among the refugees and the skilled professionals of the third world who enter the continent for work, while the former go on to naturalize, the latter return home, or move away to greener pastures where naturalization is easier (US, Canada, UK, Australia).

One incentive to retain and integrate professionals is to provide more local news in English. Since recently, English print edition dailies in Europe have been extremely rare. Here is a highly incomplete collection of English news and magazines in Scandinavia. Finland seems to be the last to have woken up, but I am optimistic.

Major resource: World Newspapers

Newspapers
Helsinki Times. Estd. 2007. Quality and circulation has improved drastically in a very short time. Printed weekly.
Helsingin Sanomat has daily English summaries and a weekly digest. But this service, like most things in Finland goes down for the summer!

Copenhagen Post. Estd. 1997. Tabloid format. I thumbed through it while I was there. International and local news. Very few pages though. Printed daily.
Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's leading daily, has an online News in English section.

The Local (Sweden). Estd. 2004. Excellent coverage of equality, women's rights etc. which are central issues in Sweden. Free online daily. A print edition doesn't seem to exist. They have started a franchise in Germany this year!
The Local (Germany): Estd. Feb. 2008. Online daily.
Japan News Review (Sweden). Estd. 2007. A unique and exclusive coverage of Japan. Includes redirects to other English news featuring Japan and compilations from Japanese news pieces. How strange!
There is also the rather trendy World News Cafe with newspapers from all over the world (about a week late), situated inside the Kulturhuset in central Stockholm.

The Norway Post: Estd. 2005. Online daily.
Aftenposten (Norway) has daily English summaries online.

Magazines
Six Degrees (Finland). Estd. 2006. Coverage is very expat centric i.e. language problems, job market, refugee integration etc. Some travel pieces etc. A good place to look for city events (Turku, Tampere, Helsinki, Oulu). Prints10 issues a year.
The Reykjavik Grapevine. Estd. 2003. I came across it in some Espresso bar in downtown Reykjavik circa July 2007. Content is very eclectic. Perhaps targeted at the tourist market (who are all quite eclectic). Also quite prolific and prints 18 issues a year.
The Scandinavian Insider. Estd. 2006. Printed in Sweden and Denmark 4 times a year.

No comments: