Norwegians: Media devoting too much coverage to Breivik

Two in three Norwegians believe the country's media have devoted too much coverage to last year's bombing and shooting attacks that claimed 77 lives, according to a survey published on Thursday, according to dpa. The results were released just a few days before Anders Behring Breivik, the man who has confessed to the deadly attacks, was to stand trial amid a huge media presence. The survey found that 68 per cent of Norwegian media consumers felt the coverage of the July 22 attacks was too extensive, while 28 per cent said it was on the right level, the Oslo daily Aftenposten reported. The February 16 to March 2 poll comprised about 1,400 people, of which almost half were journalists. The margin of error was 3.5 percentage points. The survey said almost half of the 637 Norwegian journalists polled also considered that the coverage had been too extensive. Research company Response Analyse conducted the survey for the upcoming Nordic media days convention in Bergen, western Norway. Professor Frank Aarebrot of the University of Bergen, who was in charge of the survey, said the results showed that "people want to move on" and put the July 22 events behind them. Per Edgar Kookvold, secretary general of the Norwegian Press Association, said the coverage was on the whole adequate and necessary. Meanwhile, Oslo daily Dagbladet was set to offer its online readers an option on its home page that would take them to pages without any reference to Breivik's 10-week trial, which is due to start on Monday and run until June. Dagbladet editor-in-chief John Arne Markussen said the newspaper had decided on this some time ago, citing views from its readers, broadcaster NRK said. Aftenposten and broadcaster TV2 said they had also considered this approach, but opted not to, citing the importance of the trial.