Published 12 March 2023 at 19.38
Economics. In a sobbing report in Rapport on Friday, SVT gave viewers the impression that Fredrik Reinfeldt's former state secretary Eva Uddén Sonnegård (M) was an ordinary woman who could not afford to pay off her mortgage, but was still refused by the bank. The fake news is now reported to the Review Board.
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Poor Eva
- Sobbing report in SVT when Reinfeldt top is forced to pay off the mortgage
© SVT
In the feature, Sonnegård is seen leaving an apartment complex during the interview. Even though it is made in her luxury villa in Djursholm.
© SVT
Eva Uddén Sonnegård (M) is presented with half her name – misspelled – in Rapport's feature. Something that makes it more difficult for viewers to find her in Google.
In the segment, viewers met a woman who was presented as “Eva Udéen, mortgage borrower” and who was refused by the bank when she wanted to avoid pay off their mortgage as a result of high interest rates.
In fact, the woman is the Permobil heiress and multi-millionaire Eva Uddén Sonnegård in Djursholm, who was previously state secretary in Fredrik Reinfeldt's government with a salary of almost SEK 100,000 a month and before that was a decision maker at the Riksbank.
The interview was conducted in the woman's 14-millionkronor villa in Djursholm, but in the film sequences that SVT broadcasts while she is talking during the interview, she is instead seen wandering around a high-rise area.
– This is serious. SVT uses a false name for this person in power and completely withholds the reasons why she was not granted amortization freedom on her mortgage, namely that she is a multi-millionaire, says Fria Tider's editor-in-chief Widar Nord, who reported the feature.
That SVT broadcasts video images from a high-rise area instead of the residential area in Djursholm is also something that is taken up in the report.
– This high-rise area is shown in a so-called B-roll, that is, a side sequence with mood shots or shots that are shown during an interview to give context to what the person is saying. And there she is seen leaving a gate in a high-rise building, even though the interview is done in a luxury villa in Djursholm. Using B-roll is a common way of angle in the television media, and it should be used with caution, but here it is used deliberately misleading.
Behind the feature is SVT journalist Peter Rawet, who was previously convicted in the Board of Review for attacking a Trump supporter live from Washington D.C. The fact that he has driven Sonnegård to a high-rise area to take pictures is nothing that surprises Widar Nord.
– Our review yesterday showed that he lives on a normal journalist's salary but has nevertheless bought a villa in Nacka which is valued at over 10 million kroner. It is easy to understand that such an individual wants to form an opinion for more generous loan rules, higher inflation and lower interest rates now, but SVT must prevent financially pressured employees from engaging in pure propaganda, especially pure false propaganda with fake names and the like, says Widar Nord .
There is previous practice from the Review Board where Sveriges Radio P1 was convicted of impropriety after in a report it obscured the fact that a journalist, who was presented as “Poor Frida”, was in reality a condominium. The woman in that feature had not been refused by the bank, but instead had been refused by the social service on her application for social assistance.
– The circumstances are similar, even if they are a little more extreme in this case where poor Eva owns a house worth 14 million. But it is Fria Tider that reported the feature and the Review Board is deeply politicized, so we cannot be sure that SVT will be brought down, says Nord.
Read the report to the Review Board