The authority for psychological defense notifies Kalla fakta's SD review

Published 17 May 2024 at 20.38

Domestic. The authority for psychological defense, MPF, has reported Kalla faktas' review of the Sweden Democrats to the Review Board.

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The authority reacts to how TV4 in the program uses well-known MPF ​​employees, Andrea Liebman and Mikael Tofvesson, who talk about undue information influence .

– We think it should have been made clearer that these interviews concerned the activities of a foreign power and had no connection with this particular review, says MPF director general Henrik Hjort to SVT Nyheter.

In its notification, MPF writes:

“Both people Andrea Liebman, senior analyst at the Psychological Defense Agency, and Mikael Tofvesson, deputy head of the agency at MPF, are well-known people in the context who are often interviewed on radio and on TV. There is therefore reason to fear that many viewers who have seen the program from May 7 recognizes their voices and assumes that their statements are made in interviews related to the Cold Facts review.”

The publication of the recordings of Liebman and Tofvesson risks, according to the notification, “causing significant damage to trust in the Agency for Psychological Defense's impartiality regarding statements in the Swedish information environment, as well as to the public's understanding of the agency's mission”.

“MPF considers that TV4's action to deliberately use recorded material from other occasions, an action that misleads viewers into believing that the authority would have commented on the review Cold facts presents, is, to say the least, remarkable, inappropriate and in clear violation of current media ethics . Especially as the purpose seems to be that the statements are to validate the review”, the report says.

MPF wants the Review Board to decide that the relevant elements are contrary to the requirements for objectivity and at the same time. The authority also wants TV4 to simultaneously be ordered to publish a correction “which contains that TV4 inappropriately used interviews with MPF representatives from completely different occasions than Kalla Fakta's review, and which only concerned foreign undue information influence”. Furthermore, MPF wants the Review Board to order TV4 to remove the audio and video clips with MPF representatives from the two programs that are published on TV4 Play.

Fredrick Malmberg, publisher responsible for Kalla fakta, announces that it will not be some correction at TV4's own discretion.

– I think it is very clear in the program that it is a collage from the social debate where the topic was up for discussion, he tells SVT.