Politiken
Encyclopedia
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
daily broadsheet
Broadsheet
Broadsheet is the largest of the various newspaper formats and is characterized by long vertical pages . The term derives from types of popular prints usually just of a single sheet, sold on the streets and containing various types of material, from ballads to political satire. The first broadsheet...
newspaper, published by JP/Politikens Hus
JP/Politikens Hus
JP/Politikens Hus A/S is a Danish media company. It was established on January 1, 2003 as a merger of the publishing companies of the major broadsheet newspapers Jyllands-Posten and Politiken as well as Politikens tabloid Ekstra Bladet...
.
The newspaper comes third among Danish newspapers in terms of both number of readers and circulated copies (free dailies excluded).
Politiken has 369,000 readers on weekdays and 494,000 on Sundays (first half of 2010). The number of circulated copies is 98,000 on weekdays and 126,000 on weekends (second half of 2010).
The newspaper also publishes an international edition named Politiken Weekly which compiles the most important stories of a week for Danes living abroad.
Politiken relaunched itself on its birthday 1 October 2006 keeping the broadsheet format but splitting most pages horizontally into "overview" (the upper 20-25 percent of a broadsheet page) and "depth" (rest of the page).
The depth part provides more analytical, investigative and feature-like articles that tend to be longer and more carefully presented than traditional newspaper articles. The overview part is partly produced by the papers online desk Politiken.dk and summarizes events of the latest 24 hours. The idea is to present a more distinctive and sharper selection of stories without losing the broad coverage of a traditional paper.
Internationally, Politiken is widely respected for its often creative design for which it has won several awards. In 2007 Politiken along with four other newspapers were declared the World's Best-Designed among 394 newspapers in a competition carried out by Society for News Design.
The paper's design, format and brand was given as the reason, when a jury made up of journalists, scientists and experts in 2010 awarded Politiken with the European Newspaper Award
European Newspaper Award
European Newspaper Award is a design competition for European newspapers organized by the German Office for Newspaper Design. The Award was founded in 1998 by Norbert Küpper. In 2011 there are 20 different award categories and the winners will be announced around November 15....
.
Also, Politiken has been known for its photography. Jan Grarup
Jan Grarup
Jan Grarup is a Danish photojournalist who has worked both as a staff photographer and as a freelance, specializing in war and conflict photography. He has won many prizes including the World Press Photo award for his coverage of the war in Kosovo....
, winner of several World Press Photo Awards and numerous other prizes, was a staff photographer from 2003 until 2009.
History
Dagbladet Politiken (The Daily Politiken) was founded on 1 October 1884 in CopenhagenCopenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
by Viggo Hørup
Viggo Hørup
Viggo Lauritz Bentheim Hørup , was a Danish politician, journalist and agitator.He was the father to Ellen Hørup .One of the most influential politicians of the Danish non-Socialist left wing....
, Edvard Brandes
Edvard Brandes
Carl Edvard Cohen Brandes was a Danish politician, critic and author, and the younger brother of Georg Brandes and Ernst Brandes. He was a Ph.D. in eastern philology....
and Hermann Bing. The foundation came about after Hørup and Brandes had been fired as editors from the newspaper Morgenbladet over political differences. Politiken started with daily circulation of 2,000 copies.
In 1904 Ekstra Bladet
Ekstra Bladet
Ekstra Bladet is a Danish tabloid newspaper focusing on sensationalist stories. It gets a share of its income from sex ads. Since 1979 it has always had a partly or completely naked woman on page nine which is referred to as Side 9 Pigen , a Danish equivalent of the English Page Three girl...
was founded as a supplement to Politiken. As of 1st of January 1905 Ekstra Bladet became an independent newspaper.
Politiken established its present location in central Copenhagen at The City Hall Square in 1912.
Wartime reporting
On 28 April 1940, three weeks after the German invasion of Denmark, Politiken ran an editorial in which Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
was called ‘a dangerous man’. The editorial was written by foreign affairs editor Einard Schou after a conversation in the editor-in-chief's office with chairman of the board and soon-to-be-again Danish foreign minister Erik Scavenius
Erik Scavenius
Erik Julius Christian Scavenius was the Danish foreign minister 1909–1910, 1913–1920 and 1940–1943, and prime minister from 1942 to 1943. His cabinet resigned in 1943 and suspended operations...
. The aim is thought to have been to please the German occupational force, though no other Danish newspaper took such steps at the time — usually it was enough to keep within the newly-introduced censorship. As an immediate result, thousands of readers cancelled their subscriptions in protest.
Editorial line
Historically Politiken was connected to the Danish Social Liberal Party (Det Radikale VenstreDet Radikale Venstre
The Danish Social Liberal Party is a social liberal political party in Denmark. The party is a member of Liberal International and the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party.-Origin:...
), but the newspaper declared its political independence in 1970. Interestingly the newspaper is older than the party, making this a rare case of a newspaper starting a party rather than a party starting a newspaper.
In February 2010 the editor in chief at the time Tøger Seidenfaden
Tøger Seidenfaden
Tøger Seidenfaden was a Danish journalist and political scientist, and, from 1993 until his death, editor-in-chief of the broadsheet newspaper Politiken. His father, Erik Seidenfaden, was also a journalist....
apologized to anyone who was offended by the newspaper's decision to reprint the Cartoon Drawing by Kurt Westergaard, depicting Muhammed with a bomb in his turban, which was originally published in Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten. Seidenfaden explained that "Politiken has never intended to reprint the Cartoon Drawing as a statement of editorial opinion or values but merely as part of the newspaper's news coverage".
The Cavling Award
Cavlingprisen ("The Cavling Award") is a Danish honorary award for journalism. It was named after a former reporter and editor-in-chief at Politiken Henrik Cavling.Cavling award winners at Politiken:
- 1945 Henrik V. Ringsted
- 1962 Jørgen Hartmann-Petersen (Habakuk)
- 1966 Herbert PundikHerbert PundikHerbert Pundik or Nahum Pundak is a Danish Jewish journalist and author. He has worked for the newspaper Information and as a correspondent for Danmarks Radio. Since 1965 he has worked for the newspaper Politiken, from 1970 to 1993 as executive editor...
- 1968 Erik Nørgaard
- 1974 Anne Wolden-Ræthinge (Ninka)
- 1982 J. B. Holmgaard
- 2006 Miriam Dalsgaard (photographer) and Olav Hergel
Editors in chief
In some periods there were more than one, which is why some overlap each other.- 1884-1901: Viggo HørupViggo HørupViggo Lauritz Bentheim Hørup , was a Danish politician, journalist and agitator.He was the father to Ellen Hørup .One of the most influential politicians of the Danish non-Socialist left wing....
- 1901-1904: Edvard BrandesEdvard BrandesCarl Edvard Cohen Brandes was a Danish politician, critic and author, and the younger brother of Georg Brandes and Ernst Brandes. He was a Ph.D. in eastern philology....
- 1905-1927: Henrik Cavling
- 1927-1937: Valdemar Koppel
- 1937-1933: Ove RodeOve RodeOve Rode was a Danish politician, newspaper editor and Minister of Interior Affairs for Det Radikale Venstre....
- 1931-1959: Niels Hasager
- 1941-1963: Poul GraaePoul GraaePoul Gomme Graae was a Danish football player and journalist.He played as a goalkeeper for AGF and Kjøbenhavns Boldklub, winning the 1922 and 1925 Danish championships with the latter. He represented the Denmark national football team five times from the debut in October 1920 to September 1925...
- 1946-1959: Hakon Stephensen
- 1959-1963: Svend Tillge-Rasmussen
- 1963-1966: Bo Bramsen
- 1963-1970: Ernst Priemé
- 1963-1971: Harald Engberg
- 1966-1971: Arne Ejbye-Ernst
- 1970-1993: Herbert PundikHerbert PundikHerbert Pundik or Nahum Pundak is a Danish Jewish journalist and author. He has worked for the newspaper Information and as a correspondent for Danmarks Radio. Since 1965 he has worked for the newspaper Politiken, from 1970 to 1993 as executive editor...
- 1971-1982: Bent Thorndahl
- 1981-1993: Agner Ahm
- 1981-1992: Jørgen Grunnet
- 1993-2011: Tøger SeidenfadenTøger SeidenfadenTøger Seidenfaden was a Danish journalist and political scientist, and, from 1993 until his death, editor-in-chief of the broadsheet newspaper Politiken. His father, Erik Seidenfaden, was also a journalist....
- 2011-: Bo LidegaardBo LidegaardBo Lidegaard is a Danish historian, diplomat, and editor in chief of daily broadsheet newspaper Politiken.He is the son of authors Mads Lidegaard and Else Lidegaard. Bo Lidegaard graduated from Gentofte Statsskole in 1976, and became cand. phil. in history at the University of Copenhagen in 1984....