Lars Helander: Self
Quotes
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Lars Helander : The US is the country getting the most attention on Swedish TV at the moment, but is Swedish TV portraying a distorted image of America? Is Swedish TV anti-American? The USA's biggest magazine, TV Guide, claims this in a recent article. The editor, Merrill Pannitt, wrote the article after a visit to Europe. The criticism was mostly against Holland and Sweden. Apparently Sweden was the worst.
Merrill Panitt - Editor, TV Guide : The only thing I was interested in when I was there was the Swedish television's coverage of America; American News. And that I did criticize, because I felt that there was a general anti-American feeling.
Lars Helander : How would you define the concept of anti-Americanism?
Merrill Panitt - Editor, TV Guide : I would define it as emphasizing only negative aspects of America and none of the positive ones.
Lars Helander : The following are some of the quotes from the article in TV Guide: 'The most unrestrained anti-American television this side of the Iron Curtain comes from Sweden.'
Evening News Reporter (voice) : During this weekend American B-52 bombers dropped a thousand tons of bombs...
Lars Helander : [still quoting] 'Swedish TV is portraying America as an evil country run by evil men. Already negative news from America is edited to an even more negative viewpoint. Swedish media has the most hostile viewpoint against America.'
Merrill Panitt - Editor, TV Guide : But you see that we are seeing the bad news about America on our own television in the context of living here; of seeing about us everyday the positive aspects so that we have a more realistic perspective of what's going on in America. Whereas the people in Sweden, the people living abroad, are not living in America, do not see any of the positive aspects of it and are getting just the bad news. And this is the thing that I objected to.
Lars Helander : I think that one very important factor in this change, because I think there's a change too; is the war, of course...
Merrill Panitt - Editor, TV Guide : There's no doubt about that.
Lars Helander : That has changed...
Merrill Panitt - Editor, TV Guide : I'm sure the war is as unpopular here as it is in Sweden, but we're stuck with it. I mean, this is an American problem.
