Paper To Politicians: Oh, Shut Up   

Political press secretaries in Denmark must be tearing their hair out in frustration. The country's largest daily, the Copenhagen-based Ekstra Bladet, has enacted a 100-day moratorium on all political coverage in reaction to what the paper's editors perceive as incompetent and unproductive governing by elected officials.

Editors say the ban has rejuvenated the paper's coverage of Denmark's social ills and has delighted readers fed up with political corruption and inefficiency. U.S. media watchers say that, despite public disgust with politicians' antics, such an experiment is akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Ekstra Bladet began the embargo on political coverage on October 11, three days after the country's Parliament opened for a new legislative session. The prime minister's opening speech was the last straw: When the paper's political reporters compared it to past years' pronouncements, they found that he consistently made the same promises without providing programs addressing Denmark's chronic unemployment and stratospheric income tax rates. Recent political scandals include a high-ranking conservative legislator accused of conspiring to keep Sri Lankan refugees out of the country and a Social Democratic party head who used connections to get herself placed at the top of the list for a cushy new Copenhagen apartment.

Until the moratorium expires on January 10, editors are assigning stories on the country's problems from a human interest angle. "Instead of reporting on what the politicians say, [reporters] are writing about what's really happening," says Steffen Kretz, Ekstra Bladet's New York City-based correspondent. Reader reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, Kretz says, judging from the approving calls the paper has received and a circulation increase of about 6,000.

"Everyone is talking about [the moratorium] in Denmark, and it has really sharpened the profile of the paper," Kretz says. At the start the paper prodded fellow media outlets to join the ban, but none took the bait.

How would an all-out ban on political coverage play on this side of the Atlantic? Political reporters here say the moratorium is problematic for those who respect the values of the First Amendment. "It sounds like an interesting experiment, but it seems absurd not to report on what your elected officials are doing," says Jack Nelson, Washington bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times. Nelson feels such a ban would have no impact because many media outlets would not participate.

Steve Daley, a Washington-based correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, says the ban seems like a variation on shooting the messenger. "It's one thing to try and be less manipulated by politicians," Daley says. "But not to report on politics at all is stupid."

Even if it delights readers, such a ban is a warning signal about a country's political system, says Tom Patterson, a professor at the Joan Shorenstein Barone Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. "It's quite arrogant to say that as a class there's something wrong with a group of people, much as it would be if politicians decide to put a moratorium on speaking to the press. If all of the politicians are full of it, then the society needs to be taking a long look at itself."