page_title: Mass media in Sweden
section_title: Press
hierarchical_section_title: Mass media in Sweden / Press
caption_attribution_description: Svenska: Journalisten Godfrey Renholm, 1880, Ernst Josephson (1851-1906)
context_page_description: The mass media in Sweden has a long tradition going back to the 1766 law enacting freedom of the press.
  The press is subsidized by the government and is owned by many actors, the dominant owner being Bonnier AB. Swedish television and radio were until the mid-1980s a government monopoly, which slowly has been eroded despite resistance, with a call for prohibition of private ownership of satellite dish receivers.
  Until 2019, public service media was financed by a special fee levied on owners of television or radio receivers. Reporting ownership was voluntary, but television sellers were obliged to report purchase to the government, and the government also had a special service of agents, with equipment capable of detecting emissions from television receivers, patrolling residential areas in order to catch unreported receivers. In 2018, the Riksdag voted to instead make paying for public service mandatory for all people having an income. The change was supported by all parliamentary parties except the Sweden Democrats.
  Swedish media has mechanisms for self-regulation, such as the Press Council.
context_section_description: The Swedish press is subsidized by the government through press support. Originally this was directly distributed through the political parties to their supporting newspapers, but nowadays subsidies are more direct in form, and are tied to certain requirements, e.g. a minimum of 2000 subscribers. Support also exists in indirect form in the shape of partial tax-exceptions.
  The Swedish Press is self-regulated through the Public Press Ombudsman, or Allmänhetens Pressombudsman and the Swedish Press Council, or Pressens Opinionsnämnd. One example of this is that Swedish media follow a principle of not disclosing the identities of suspected criminals. There was some controversy when Dagens Nyheter on 27 September 2003 published the name and picture of Mijailo Mijailović, who was the suspected assassin of Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh.
  Freedom of the press in Sweden dates back to 1766 when it was enshrined in a law enacted by the Riksdag of the Estates (see Freedom of the press#Sweden_and_Finland). It is today a part of the Constitution of Sweden.
  The Swedish newspaper with the widest circulation is the evening newspaper Aftonbladet, controlled by the Norwegian media conglomerate Schibsted (majority holder) and the Swedish Trade Union Confederation.  Its competitor, Expressen, is controlled by Bonnier AB and has sister editions in Gothenburg (GT) and Malmö (Kvällsposten). Bonnier AB also controls the major national morning newspaper, Dagens Nyheter. Its Stockholm competitor Svenska Dagbladet is owned by Schibsted. Göteborgs-Posten is the major regional newspaper in Gothenburg and the west of Sweden, while another Bonnier-owned newspaper, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, dominates in Malmö and the south. Bonnier AB also owns Sweden's major business newspaper, Dagens Industri. The Local is one of the few English language general news websites in the country which has been the subject of attacks by groups such as Anonymous and has seen an upsurge of people complaining of censorship and bias. In recent years, Swedish state broadcaster, Sverigesradio, has been offering a wider selection of news through its website in English.
  Through its subsidiary Bonnier Tidskrifter AB, Bonnier AB also controls many of Sweden's most popular magazines, such as Amelia, Allt om Mat, Teknikens Värld and the business magazine Veckans Affärer.  Other major magazine publishers in Sweden are Allers förlag, the Danish-controlled Egmont and the French Hachette Filipacchi Médias.
  Sweden also has many large organizations which almost all produce membership magazines with a wide readership. The biggest ones, with readership figures above 300 000, include Vår bostad (published by the Union of Tenants and HSB, a cooperative building society), PRO-pensionären (published by the Pensioners’ National Organization) and the magazines of the largest trade unions: Kommunalarbetaren (published by the Municipal Workers' Union), Siftidningen (published by the Union of Clerical and Technical Employees in Industry) and Dagens Arbete (published jointly by the Metalworkers' Union, the Industrial Union, the Graphic Workers' Union, the Paper Workers' Union and the Forest and Wood Workers' Union).
caption: The 19th Century Swedish journalist Godfrey Renholm (1880 painting by Ernst Josephson
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