We are concerned. Worried public’s behalf for NRK’s future in Hedmark. The background is the downsizing of NRK staff in Hedmark and the reduction of regional office in Elverum to a local office. And we, it’s NRK veterans, all with long careers in Hedmark.
We have no illusions about to overturn decisions to reduce NRK’s activities in one of the country’s counties. We have no illusions that everything was better before, although much was obviously there. But we have no illusions that NRK Hedmark listeners, viewers and readers hereafter will get the same service and coverage as before. That is what worries us. NRK is left with a broken back in Hedmark.
Whatever new technology – which crew to cover such a large county Hedmark journalism. Listeners and viewers must now rely on a lower news and cultural offerings of the county than in the past, and a poorer service than NRK gives in most other counties. This also goes beyond Hedmark visibility at national level. Hedmark is a sparsely populated county in comparison with, for example, the counties around the Oslo Fjord. But listeners and viewers, both here and there to pay the same license and should therefore be entitled to the same service.
Therefore we are surprised that politicians in Hedmark, both at the municipal and county have sat peep in the boat during the process leading to the reduction in NRK Hedmark. They have not understood the consequences, or have not NRK longer mattered in the media in Hedmark? If the latter is the case, there is even greater cause for concern. What contingency obligations NRK in Oslo? What if, for instance, comes a new great flood? Or will we see that the complex predator conflict in Hedmark be covered by journalists from Oslo or Lillehammer who do not have the ballast as the local reporters have?
In NRK preamble states that NRK should reflect the geographic diversity of Norway and have a good local service and local presence. Recently selected NRK to reopen a separate district for Finnmark after years of merging with Troms. As emphasized Broadcasting, with many fine words, just that it is done to give the population of Finnmark a better media offers and give the county a larger space in the national news. Should not the same arguments also apply to Hedmark?
There are veterans privilege to recall how it was before. Ever since NRK Hedmark was established with a private house in Elverum in 1981, the office has been designated as a pioneering office and part of NRK’s spine. District Office was the first who started to use computer tools both in program production and technical service. NRK Hedmark was a driving force to establish wireless transmit opportunities throughout the county, traffic messaging RDS for live broadcasts (even for BBC with 20 million listeners!), For building up local music archive, and for high news production for the nationwide network of radio and TV. Just to mention a few. Yes, this is the past. But it created a culture at a forward office is now described further away.
Veterans are often rebuffed that “this is progress, this is our future”, just as that development is something that drifts in a trencher and just to be accepted. No, development and future of an institution shaped by the decisions that are taken. And the decisions that the broadcast management has now taken for NRK Hedmark pointing unfortunately only one road into the future. What’s next, what happens next year?
Ivar Hagen, Inger Foxton, Øyvind Bæk, Aase Dahling, Tore Andresen, Magnar Nøtåsen, Knut Skaaraas, Randi Hagebakken, Bjorn Furuheim, Jan Fredrik Klemmetvold Ivan Hagen, Per Dahling, Randi Hansen, Odd Henrik Johnsen and Bjorn Anders Sorli
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