Karl Fredrik Virtanen (born 15 November 1971 in Motala,

Östergötland County Östergötland County ( sv, Östergötlands län) is a county or ''län'' in southeastern Sweden. It has land borders with the counties of Kalmar to the southeast, Jönköping to the southwest, Örebro to the northwest, and Södermanland to the n ...

) is a Sweden-Finnish

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and former columnist for the Swedish newspaper ''

Aftonbladet ''Aftonbladet'' (, lit. "The evening paper") is a Swedish daily newspaper published in Stockholm, Sweden. It is one of the largest daily newspapers in the Nordic countries. History and profile The newspaper was founded by Lars Johan H ...

'' and the host for the

talk show A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show ...

'' Studio Virtanen'' on Swedish TV8. He has also hosted radio shows for

Sveriges Radio Sveriges Radio AB (, "Sweden's Radio") is Sweden's national publicly funded radio broadcaster. Sveriges Radio is a public limited company, owned by an independent foundation, previously funded through a licensing fee, the level of which is d ...

. For ''Aftonbladet'', he was the

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correspondent, contributing weekly columns about life in the city. He also reported on entertainment, such as the

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...

. In October 2017, the Swedish media reported accusations from multiple women of Virtanen's sexual assault and sexual harassment after the hashtag Me Too went viral. In 2019, the District Attorney's Office in Stockholm

prosecuted A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial ...

Cissi Wallin, one of the women accusing Virtanen, with aggravated criminal defamation. She was given a suspended sentence and ordered to pay 90,000 kronor in damages to Virtanen. Wallin said she would be appealing the sentence. Fredrik Virtanen wrote the Swedish and Norwegian book ''Utan nåd'' (''No Mercy'') about controversial journalism during the Swedish Me Too movement. In 2020 ''Aftonbladet'' purchased and published an article by Virtanen;

Karin Pettersson Karin may refer to: *Karin (given name), a feminine name Fiction * ''Karin'' (manga) or ''Chibi Vampire'', a Japanese media franchise *Karin Hanazono, title character of the manga and anime ''Kamichama Karin'' *Karin Kurosaki, a character in ''Bl ...

, head of Culture in ''Aftonbladet'', said that she did not believe in being banned from one's profession. In 2022, Swedish-American journalist

Jenny Nordberg Jenny Nordberg is a New York-based, Swedish journalist best known for her book '' The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan ('') published by Crown Publishing Group (New York, NY) in 2014. Life She has B.A. fro ...

published an extensive article in ''The New York Times'', describing the Swedish legal system regarding libel and the consequences for women speaking out against sexual abuse: "Unlike in the United States, where truth is widely considered to be an absolute defense in defamation cases, Swedish law takes a two-step approach. The court first decides whether the alleged defamation is "justifiable"— that is, whether it's of broad public interest. Only if the court decides that a statement is justifiable will it move on to consider whether or not it is true. In this case, despite Mr. Virtanen's being one of the highest-profile writers at the country's largest newspaper, the court concluded that he was not enough of a public figure to justify public interest in his personal conduct. Ms. Wallin's posts, in other words, were not justifiable, and as a result, it didn't matter whether her account of their encounter was accurate. 'The court will not review whether the statements were true,' the verdict read." Nordberg also described her own experiences with Virtanen's

misogyny Misogyny () is hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women. It is a form of sexism that is used to keep women at a lower social status than men, thus maintaining the societal roles of patriarchy. Misogyny has been widely practiced fo ...

Bibliography

* ''Olyckligt kär i ingen speciell'' (2006) * ''Kraschad'' (2009) * ''Utan nåd'' (2019)

References

1971 births Living people People from Motala Municipality Swedish journalists Swedish television journalists Swedish male bloggers Swedish people of Finnish descent {{Sweden-journalist-stub