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Sexual harassment in Norway’s media industry to be investigated

The Local Norway
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Sexual harassment in Norway’s media industry to be investigated
Sweden's minister for equality Åsa Regnér speaks at a #MeToo demonstration in Stockholm. Photo: Claudio Bresciani/TT / NTB scanpix

The Norwegian Media Businesses’ Association (Mediebedriftenes Landsforening, MBL) has announced it will report on incidents of sexual harassment in the country’s media industry.

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The announcement by MBL comes in the wake of the #MeToo campaign, which has seen women across the world share their own experiences in the wake of sexual assault allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

In Sweden, the campaign has led to complaints being filed against high-profile television personalities and other members of the media industry.

MBL has now made the decision to create a record of all instances of sexual harassment in Norway’s media industry, reports website Kampanje.

The report will be the first time the association has looked into the issue.

A similar investigation in Sweden revealed that every third female writer, journalist or editor in that country’s media industry has considered leaving the profession as a result of sexual harassment experience at work.

“I would like to think that the situation is better here, and that we have come further with equality,” MBL’s head Randi S. Øgrey told Kampanje.

Harald Stanghelle, chairperson of the Norwegian Editors’ Association (Norsk Redaktørforening) told broadcaster NRK that he believed Norway’s media industry is too “transparent” for revelations like those in the United States and Sweden to be repeated in Oslo.

“Women are fortunately so strongly represented amongst journalists and editors in Norway that I think media industry leaders would be unable to commit sexual harassment without it coming out. That is something I hope, as I say, but I can’t know for sure. Only women who may have suffered can answer [for sure],” Stanghelle, an editor with the Aftenposten newspaper, said.

On Sunday, Aftenposten editor Sarah Sørheim went public with her experience of harassment by a senior figure in the Norwegian media industry.

“I think we have challenges in the media industry. As a manager, I feel it is important to realise that, even if you have not experienced it personally, that does not meant it doesn’t happen,” Sørheim told NRK.

READ ALSO: Swedish broadcaster reports senior staff member over sexual harassment accusations

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