( in the masthead; ;

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

for "The Evening Post") is Norway's largest printed

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

by circulation. It is based in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

. It sold 211,769 copies in 2015 (172,029 printed copies according to University of Bergen) and estimated 1.2 million readers. It converted from

broadsheet A broadsheet is the largest newspaper format and is characterized by long Vertical and horizontal, vertical pages, typically of . Other common newspaper formats include the smaller Berliner (format), Berliner and Tabloid (newspaper format), ta ...

compact Compact as used in politics may refer broadly to a pact or treaty; in more specific cases it may refer to: * Interstate compact * Blood compact, an ancient ritual of the Philippines * Compact government, a type of colonial rule utilized in British ...

format in March 2005. ''Aftenposten''s online edition is at Aftenposten.no. It is considered a

newspaper of record A newspaper of record is a major national newspaper with large circulation whose editorial and news-gathering functions are considered authoritative and independent; they are thus "newspapers of record by reputation" and include some of the o ...

for Norway. ''Aftenposten'' is a

private company A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

wholly owned by the public company Schibsted ASA. Norway's second largest newspaper, ''VG'', is also owned by Schibsted. Norwegian owners held a 42% of the shares in Schibsted at the end of 2015. The paper has around 740 employees.

Trine Eilertsen Trine Eilertsen (born 1 May 1969) is a Norwegian journalist and newspaper editor. She is the current editor-in-chief of the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten. Early life and education Eilertsen was born in Bærum and grew up at Sotra. She gradua ...

was appointed

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

in 2020.

History and profile

''Aftenposten'' was founded by Christian Schibsted on 14 May 1860 under the name ''Christiania Adresseblad''. The following year, it was renamed ''Aftenposten''. Since 1885, the paper has printed two daily editions. A Sunday edition was published until 1919, and was reintroduced in 1990. The Friday-morning edition carries the ''A-magasinet'' supplement, featuring articles on science, politics, and the arts. In 1886, ''Aftenposten'' bought a

rotary press A rotary printing press is a printing press in which the images to be printed are curved around a cylinder. Printing can be done on various substrates, including paper, cardboard, and plastic. Substrates can be sheet feed or unwound on a continuo ...

, being the first Norwegian newspaper in this regard. Historically, ''Aftenposten'' labelled itself as "independent,

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

", most closely aligning their editorial platform with the Norwegian

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

. This manifested itself in blunt anticommunism during the interwar era. During World War II, ''Aftenposten'', due to its large circulation, was put under the directives of the German occupational authorities, and a Nazi editorial management was imposed. Its editor-in-chief was H. Nesse at that time, and he was arrested and imprisoned in

Grini concentration camp '', '' no, Grini fangeleir'', location=Bærum, Viken, Norway, location map=Viken#Norway, built by=Norway, original use=Constructed as a women's prison, operated by=Nazi Germany, notable inmates= List of Grini prisoners, liberated by=Harry Söderma ...

. ''Aftenposten'' is based in Oslo. In the late 1980s, Egil Sundar served as the editor-in-chief and attempted to transform the paper into a nationally distributed newspaper. However, he was forced to resign from his post due to his attempt.

Editions

In addition to the morning edition, ''Aftenposten'' published a separate evening edition called ''Aften'' (previously ''Aftenposten Aften''). This edition was published on weekdays and Saturdays until the Sunday morning edition was reintroduced in 1990. The evening edition was only circulated in the central eastern part of Norway, i.e. Oslo and

Akershus Akershus () is a traditional region and current electoral district in Norway, with Oslo as its main city and traditional capital. It is named after the Akershus Fortress in Oslo. From the middle ages to 1919, Akershus was a fief and main county ...

counties. Thus, it focused on news related to this area, in contrast with the morning edition, which focuses on national and international news. The evening edition was converted to tabloid format in 1997. From April 2006, the Thursday edition of ''Aften'' also included a special edition with news specific to a part of Oslo or Akershus, called ''Lokal Aften'' ("Local Evening"). This edition had eight versions, with each subscriber receiving the version which is most relevant to the area in which he or she lives. In areas not covered by any of the eight versions (for example

Romerike Romerike is a traditional district located north-east of Oslo, in what is today south-eastern Norway. It consists of the Viken municipalities Lillestrøm, Lørenskog, Nittedal, Rælingen and Aurskog-Høland in the southern end (Nedre Romerike), ...

and Follo), the version for central Oslo was distributed. From May 2009, ''Aften'' was only printed and distributed Tuesday through Thursday. The publication of ''Aften'' ended on 20 December 2012. ''Aftenposten'' started its online edition in 1995.

Controversies

''Aftenposten'' opposed the award of the

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Chemi ...

to German pacifist

Carl von Ossietzky Carl von Ossietzky (; 3 October 1889 – 4 May 1938) was a German journalist and pacifist. He was the recipient of the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in exposing the clandestine German re-armament. As editor-in-chief of the magazine ''Die ...

in 1935. In 1945, ''Aftenposten'' published an obituary of Adolf Hitler in which the 86-year-old Nobel-laureate novelist

Knut Hamsun Knut Hamsun (4 August 1859 – 19 February 1952) was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to consciousness, subject, perspective a ...

referred to Hitler as "a warrior for humankind and a preacher of the gospel of justice for all nations". At that time, ''Aftenposten'' was under the censorship of the German occupying forces. Historically, ''Aftenposten'' has not received the same number of lawsuits or as much attention from the

Norwegian Press Complaints Commission The Norwegian Press Complaints Commission ( no, Pressens Faglige Utvalg) is a complaint commission of Norwegian Press Association. The members of the commission from are (from July 2012 to July 2014):Julia Svetlichnaya, the last person to interview the murdered Russian national

Alexander Litvinenko Alexander Valterovich "Sasha" Litvinenko (30 August 1962 ( at WebCite) or 4 December 1962 – 23 November 2006) was a British-naturalised Russian defector and former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) who specialised i ...

, was a Kremlin agent. London correspondent Hilde Harbo admitted having allowed herself to be fed disinformation emanating from the Russian emigrant community without investigating the matter properly. ''Aftenposten'' eventually had to apologize and pay Svetlichnaya's legal costs. In 2011 the newspaper was criticized by Jon Hustad for publishing

conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a nega ...

that promoted the false claim that convicted Soviet spy

Arne Treholt Arne Treholt (born 13 December 1942) is a Norwegian-born, Russia-based convicted felon and former KGB agent who was convicted of treason and espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union against Norway during the Cold War and sentenced to 20 years in p ...

was innocent, based entirely on a book by convicted fraudster

Geir Selvik Malthe-Sørenssen Geir Eriksen (born 15 May 1965), former names Geir Selvik and Geir Selvik Malthe-Sørenssen,

that was revealed to be based on a fabricated source. In a study dated 2016 ''Aftenposten'' was found to contain the

epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...

''Negro'' (Norwegian: ''neger'') at the highest frequency in the period between 1970 and 2014 with 674 references. In 2021 the paper was criticized by the youth organization of the National Association for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgender People for allegedly publishing articles that promoted

transphobic Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger tow ...

conspiracy theories about

trans women A trans woman or a transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and so ...

Editorial line

''Aftenposten'' had a conservative stance and supported the political party

Høyre The Conservative Party or The Right ( nb, Høyre, nn, Høgre, , H; se, Olgešbellodat) is a liberal-conservative political party in Norway. It is the major party of the Norwegian centre-right, and was the leading party in government as part of ...

until the breakdown of party press system in the country. Following this, the paper positioned itself as an independent

centre-right Centre-right politics lean to the Right-wing politics, right of the Left–right politics, political spectrum, but are closer to the Centrism, centre. From the 1780s to the 1880s, there was a shift in the Western world of social class structure a ...

newspaper.

Language

From its establishment in 1860 until 1923, ''Aftenposten'' was published in the common Dano-Norwegian written language used in both Norway and Denmark, which was generally known as Danish in Denmark and as Norwegian in Norway, and which only occasionally included minor differences from each other in vocabulary or idiom. In 1923 ''Aftenposten'' adopted the Norwegian spelling standard of 1907, which mainly replaced the "soft" consonants (e.g. d, b) characteristic of Danish pronunciation (but also used in some Norwegian dialects) with "hard" consonants (e.g. t, p) characteristic of Eastern Central Norwegian pronunciation, but which was otherwise mostly identical with Danish. In 1928 ''Aftenposten'' adopted the most conservative variant of the spelling standard of 1917, which is largely similar to the "moderate Bokmål" or "Riksmål" standard used today. During the

Norwegian language struggle The Norwegian language conflict ( no, målstriden, da, sprogstriden) is an ongoing controversy in Norwegian culture and politics related to the written versions of Norwegian language, Norwegian. From 1536/1537 until 1814, Danish language, Danish ...

from the early 1950s, ''Aftenposten'' was the main newspaper of the

Riksmål (, also , ) is a written Norwegian language form or spelling standard, meaning the ''National Language'', closely related and now almost identical to the dominant form of Bokmål, known as . Both Bokmål and Riksmål evolved from the Danish wri ...

variety of Norwegian, and maintained close ties to the Riksmål movement's institutions, recognising the

Norwegian Academy for Language and Literature The Norwegian Academy for Language and Literature ( no, Det Norske Akademi for Språk og Litteratur), commonly known as the Norwegian Academy, is a Norwegian learned body on matters pertaining to the modern Norwegian language in its Dano-Norwegian ...

as the sole authoritative body for regulating the Norwegian language as used by the newspaper. Due to its status as the country's largest and most influential newspaper, ''Aftenposten'' therefore had a significant influence on the developments that took place during the Norwegian language struggle. The "moderate" or "conservative" Riksmål language used by ''Aftenposten'' was mainly associated with a conservative stance in Norwegian politics, and was contrasted with the "radical"

Samnorsk The Norwegian language conflict ( no, målstriden, da, sprogstriden) is an ongoing controversy in Norwegian culture and politics related to the written versions of Norwegian. From 1536/1537 until 1814, Danish was the standard written language o ...

language, an attempt to merge

Bokmål Bokmål () (, ; ) is an official written standard for the Norwegian language, alongside Nynorsk. Bokmål is the preferred written standard of Norwegian for 85% to 90% of the population in Norway. Unlike, for instance, the Italian language, there ...

with

Nynorsk Nynorsk () () is one of the two written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language ( no, Landsmål) parallel to the Dano-Nor ...

which was promoted by socialist governments in the 1950s. By 1960 it had become apparent that the Samnorsk attempt had failed, and as a result, Aftenposten's Riksmål standard and the government-promoted Bokmål standard have in the following decades become almost identical as the Bokmål standard has incorporated nearly all of Riksmål. As a consequence, ''Aftenposten'' decided to describe its language as "Moderate Bokmål" from 2006, and published its own dictionary, based on Riksmål and Moderate Bokmål, but excluding "radical" (i.e. similar to Nynorsk) variants of Bokmål. The online version of the paper for some years during the early 2000s had an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

section. To cut costs, ''Aftenposten'' stopped publishing English-language articles in early November 2008. Archives of past material are still available online.

Circulation

''Aftenposten'' (morning paper)

Numbers from the Norwegian Media Businesses' Association,

Mediebedriftenes Landsforening The Norwegian Media Businesses' Association ( no, Mediebedriftenes Landsforening, MBL) is an employers' organisation in Norway, organized under the national Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise. The current CEO is Arvid Sand. Chairman of the board ...

1980–2009: * 1980: 223,925 * 1981: 227,122 * 1982: 230,205 * 1983: 232,459 * 1984: 233,998 * 1985: 240,600 * 1986: 252,093 * 1987: 260,915 * 1988: 264,469 * 1989: 267,278 * 1990: 265,558 * 1991: 269,278 * 1992: 274,870 * 1993: 278,669 * 1994: 279,965 * 1995: 282,018 * 1996: 283,915 * 1997: 286,163 * 1998: 288,078 * 1999: 284,251 * 2000: 276,429 * 2001: 262,632 * 2002: 263,026 * 2003: 256,639 * 2004: 249,861 * 2005: 252,716 * 2006: 248,503 * 2007: 250,179 * 2008: 247,556 * 2009: 243,188 * 2010: 239,831 * 2011: 235,795 * 2012: 225,981 * 2013: 214,026 * 2014: 221,659 * 2015: 211,769

''Aften'' (evening paper) - now defunct

Numbers from the Norwegian Media Businesses' Association,

: 1989–2009: * 1939: 78,700 * — * — * — * — * — * — * — * — * 1989: 193,932 * 1990: 192,896 * 1991: 195,022 * 1992: 197,738 * 1993: 198,647 * 1994: 188,544 * 1995: 186,003 * 1996: 188,635 * 1997: 191,269 * 1998: 186,417 * 1999: 180,497 * 2000: 175,783 * 2001: 167,671 * 2002: 163,924 * 2003: 155,366 * 2004: 148,067 * 2005: 141,612 * 2006: 137,141 * 2007: 131,089 * 2008: 124,807 * 2009: 111,566

''Aftenposten.no'', online newspaper

The online newspaper ''Aftenposten.no'' had an average of 827,000 daily readers in 2015, an increase from 620.000 in 2010.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Aftenposten 1860 establishments in Norway Newspapers published in Oslo Norwegian-language newspapers Newspapers established in 1860 Daily newspapers published in Norway Norwegian news websites