Public service broadcasters across the Nordic countries have agreed to work more closely together to prepare for crises. The cooperation is designed to counter threats including cyber attacks and the spread of disinformation, Finland’s Yle reported on Friday 9 October, when it published a statement on the agreement.
Seven broadcasters from five countries are taking part. Alongside Yle, the Finnish Broadcasting Company, the group includes DR, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation; RÚV, Iceland’s public broadcaster; and NRK, Norway’s state-owned public service broadcaster. Sweden is represented by three organisations: SVT, its national public television broadcaster; SR, the publicly funded national radio broadcaster; and UR, the Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company. Between them, the seven run the main public television and radio services that audiences across the region rely on every day.
The core of the deal is a pledge of mutual help. If a crisis hits one of the countries, its Nordic neighbours have promised to step in. Yle gave the example of a country losing access to its own news and information sources, in which case residents could still receive updates through another Nordic public broadcaster. The arrangement is meant to make sure that audiences are not cut off from reliable information at the moment they need it most. Cyber threats and disinformation are named among the risks the broadcasters want to be ready for, and the agreement is framed around preparation, so that support can be offered quickly if one service is disrupted.
The companies have also set out a clear limit on the cooperation. They describe journalistic independence as a core principle of the agreement, and say that working together does not give any one broadcaster the power to decide what another puts on air. Each organisation will continue to make its own editorial choices for its own audience in its own language, with the agreement covering preparation and support rather than content.
Yle’s report on the deal links the agreement to wider coverage of regional security, including an SVT story from 28 August on Sweden sending military units to help Finland monitor its eastern border. For viewers and listeners in Denmark and across the region, the agreement means that if their own public broadcaster cannot reach them during a crisis, a neighbouring Nordic broadcaster has committed to help keep the news flowing.
