Peter Wolodarski had called Ake Ortmark and repeatedly asked: Was there no vacancy as a researcher on his talk show ‘O’ in Ortmark “on TV8? In the end, there was a gap. After a few hours in the recruits joined Ortmark dug up employment papers to double check his social security number.
– It was that he was 21 years, but I felt him rather as 60. I had previously had a researcher who did not know who Ernst Wigforss was. Yes, I had virtually forced to tell about Olof Palme . Here was a young guy with an aura of insight and experience that I was immediately impressed. I immediately began to treat him, and then took a few steps without asking him, says Åke Ortmark.
After a few weeks turned Åke Ortmark Peter Wolodarski to assessors in the program. Barbro Hedvall , former colleague of Peter Wolodarski in Dagens Nyheter and Expressen’s editorial leadership, remember when one day she discussed the Ebbe Carlsson affair with him.
– Peter had a better eye on the details than I, and suddenly it hit me. He can not have been more than 10 years when the deal took place. It seems that he has lived a long life in a short time, she says.
“precocious”, “prodigy” and “geek” is a word that recurs in descriptions of him. I prefer Peter Wolodarski to call himself an outsider. An individualist. He never really thrived in political Youth League team play. Also as an editorial writer, he had sometimes difficult to subordinate themselves to the agreed line.
– He was a bargain as a writer but not easy to control, says Niklas Ekdal , former political editor of the Daily News and the one who hired him to lead the editorial 2001.
– A question where we separated us was the uS invasion of Iraq. I had lived in the Middle East for several years and found that I had an eye on the military and historical aspect of an invasion. I was against but Peter was too. It was a tough discussion between experience and ideology, but on the whole, of course, was his independence of an asset, says Niklas Ekdal.
Peter Wolodarski yourself thinking, from his glass-enclosed corner room at the Dagens Nyheter editorial, over its instinct not to follow the herd.
– I have always gone my own way. Always been different, for better or worse. I have not asked for permission. I have followed my own inner compass.
Peter Wolodarski recall the reactions when he, as newly appointed editor in chief in March 2013 formulated a statement. After he was on the editorial floor had first declared that he lacked experience in news reporting and had never been a correspondent, he said that DN would now bet big on narrative journalism.
– There was strong internal resistance to it. We can not start the magazine with six pages long article. Who can read it? So it went, remembers Peter Wolodarski.
He held the compass direction. Now the question to get the route. Comparing DN today with the newspaper that Peter Wolodarski joined in 2001, it is like a different galaxy. A manager who was recruited to DN during this period describes first meeting with the editors, then spread over three floors.
– It was like opening a large drinks cabinet full of bottles. So much people everywhere. What a party. But then I began to look at each bottle and realized that most were empty or contained only little plains on the ground. People were on leave, working on their own projects, worked 20 percent. Writing in the newspaper seemed to be a bit of a side business, said the person who prefers to remain anonymous.
When the tsunami occurred on Boxing Day 2004, most major Swedish media in place before the Daily News. The editor Jan Wifstrand said in an internal e-mail to the editors that if all those who criticized the paper’s news coverage itself had rolled up their sleeves and helped everything would have been different.
Although Expressen sat only a few floors up in the News building in Marieberg and regularly provided the Daily News with some of their best employees, not trickled tabloid agile news reporting and external adjustment down to DN.
– DN had a very unhappy period in the early 2000s, when it went bad for us economically. There is nothing more destructive. It settles like a wet blanket over the whole business. You can not bet, do not recruit. We had a hiring freeze. DN can not have a hiring freeze. There is death for us, says Peter Wolodarski.
Not even the hardline Aftonbladet Savior Thorbjorn Larsson managed to reverse the trend. His last two years as editor of DN – 2008 and 2009 – ended with a combined operating loss of almost half a billion crowns (477.5 million).
Herlitz took over as publisher – editor in chief and president – cleared liquor cabinet considerably. At first, the savings package in 2010 disappeared 100 services. In March 2013, it continued with a second austerity package. Now would one in five employees – 80 posts – away. Peter Wolodarski presented nedbemanningen during his first months as editor in chief.
– I even heard the old editorial board, so this was nothing like that had been imposed on me. We saw in the fall of 2012, advertising revenues plummeted. We had to take down our costs in all areas of the company. I saw it as necessary. I completely agree with Herlitz about it, says Peter Wolodarski.
Peter Wolodarski on DN’s editorial board. Photo: Kristina Sahlén.
Twelve employees were placed in a so-called project of a local three kilometers from the DN’s editorial office with the task of including tagging articles for the DN’s 150th anniversary in 2014. one of the employees explained that it was a work as “a middle school student could do.” The project came to be called the freezer.
The newspaper journalist acclaimed DN’s actions in a story ( “A chest freezer for 30 million”). The paper claims that in a dozen occasions over a four-month searched Wolodarski and that he avoided comment on the newspaper’s treatment of its employees. (Wolodarski argue today that there were two or three occasions, and that one of the reasons for his silence was that there was a process in the Labour Court).
During Almedalsveckan last summer confronted newspaper reporter John Nesser Peter Wolodarski. A short movie clip (which has been viewed more than 22,000 times on YouTube) shows a fleeing Peter Wolodarski responsive “You’ll hear from you just like everyone else.” Today, the Peter Wolodarski part a new picture of the incident.
– It was a very special situation in Almedalen. I led an evening seminar on the DN and had five minutes for me to move me to a video-recording in another tent. I have not told you this before, but it was also a threat against me during this period. I had personal. Suddenly John Nesser up to me and want me to answer questions. Regardless of whether I wanted to or not, I had no practical possibility. Everything went so fast, I did not understand the situation or that it was filmed. I think I had handled it radically different today.
He calls the freezer “very unfortunate and painful for those affected.”
What could he have done differently?
– I could certainly have done lots of things differently. Since it is my opinion that it is never even wrong when two people quarrel. We ended up in a position of complete locking with our journalism club. It was a failure, led to a protracted conflict and lawsuits in the Labour Court. But the lawsuits were withdrawn and we reached individual agreements with all concerned. I hope we never again find ourselves in such a situation.
He thinks that the relations in the Dagens Nyheter journalist club have since improved and cites last year’s streamlining of the printed paper as an example.
– We reduced from 33 to 15. Editor Have you even heard of it? There were no resurrection at all and we managed to resolve it on a voluntary basis. I wish it had been able to operate as 2013.
Peter Wolodarski says it may have taken longer to Dagens Nyheter than other media companies to realize the need for conversion, but that there is now a widespread understanding that magazine must change, all the time.
One need not have gone Commerce to understand the following numbers: When Peter Wolodarski began in Dagens Nyheter newspaper’s ad revenue in 2001 amounted to 1.5 billion a year. Today, advertising revenues for the paper magazine 500 million. The completely new conditions must be met with reduced costs – and higher quality, says Peter Wolodarski.
– We have gone from being dependent on our advertisers to be dependent on our readers. When advertising is broken harbors many newspapers in a negative spiral of cutbacks that affect the content and quality negatively. I think there is a position to take the one that goes in the opposite direction. If we are able to charge an increased contribution from the readers must publicist bitch end up even more in the center. I want us to be Sweden’s national quality newspaper, he says.
Paul Hansen , multi-award winning photographer, attests to Peter Wolodarski high value content.
– As the crisis in Ukraine turned into a hybrid war we were in place continuously for almost a year. It’s just the New York Times, which has the same presence in the field, he says.
Any cost savings that the newspaper has done, according Wolodarski, made possible the investments that will make unique DN. The magazine has enlisted some of Sweden’s most prominent writers in recent years: Karin Eriksson , Niklas Orrenius , Lena Sundström , Björn af Kleen, Mikael Holmström , Lasse Wierup , Birgitta Forsberg , Anna-Lena Laurén and – most recently from Sveriges Radio – Martin Jönsson , who will work with digitization issues.
– My goal since I took over as editor in chief is to make the DN into a magnet for the industry’s best in every area. They should want to be here. The good story will survive all the changes in technology, he says.
Peter Wolodarski believe that the media industry’s crisis has led to a power change. No media company’s brand is as strong as before.
– We have never been more dependent on our employees today. We depend on strong profiles. You must differentiate yourself, he says.
Readers entitles him and have shown themselves willing to pay more for their morning newspaper. DN has the last five years has managed to increase its readership revenues 650-900 million. January of this year was the best month subscription for DN since 2004, when the paper magazine and digital subscriptions are added together.
A sample calculation that says something about the DN readers’ loyalty is what happened when the newspaper ended with morning distribution to Gotland in October 2013. Of the 6000 paper longtime newspaper subscribers chose a third to stop the newspaper. One-third went on to become digital subscribers, while the final third continued to subscribe to the printed edition, although it was distributed by mail the day after.
– The newspaper still has a role to play for many readers. Some days we have equal edition Expressen and Aftonbladet together. We have loyal paper newspaper readers who pay a lot for his newspaper, says Peter Wolodarski.
There is an explanation for that DN, which Résumé has been able to uncover earlier, in April will launch a news magazine on paper that comes out on Fridays and primarily aimed at readers outside Stockholm. The magazine – which will be called Today’s News Magazine – will contain the “crème de la crème” (Wolodarskis choice of words) of DN’s journalism.
– A majority of our revenue still comes from the paper magazine. I will not be the last editor of Dagens Nyheter’s paper newspaper. But that’s not where the future lies, says Peter Wolodarski and shows part of the Daily News which is a bit remote and which houses a ping pong between desktops.
Here are the digital department has grown from 10 employees to 90 in less than two years. The digital department – that DN components with Dagens Industri – are in practice what Bonnier CEO Tomas Franzén means when he gives the following calculation example:
If a magazine has 167 people working with content and 3 people with iT technology, they’ll 3 just getting dedicate themselves to maintaining the technology platforms. If the content of the people on the other hand will be 50 fewer and replaced by an equal number of data analysts, developers and UX designer, when it begins suddenly to happen. Then there is time to develop and drive change.
DN’s case, this involves a partnership with Klarna that have reduced the pay ladder to become digital subscribers from seven to one. In 2015 rose DN their digital investment of 50 million, the newspaper has now passed 34,000 subscribers purely digital.
– There is no free subscriptions, no cheating behalf without real money in, emphasizes Peter Wolodarski.
His goal is to DN within a couple of years to have 100,000 paying digital subscribers.
– It is the great survival issue for us. I spend much of my time to think about how the DN to move forward. Our strategic position is clear. It is not click-through hunting or scope as we are to handle the transition, but by a paying relationship with readers, says Peter Wolodarski.
When he this day collects the employees at the coffee machine to tell if the financial statements for 2015 (profit of SEK 122 million), he begins by saying that “Gunilla will not be in today.” Of the old conflict between the editor and director – where one wants to say something and another wants it to pay off – seems to be nothing left. Peter Wolodarski never felt the need to face DN’s employees mark their independence against Herlitz, his predecessor in the post, and (until the summer) his executive overcoat?
– But I am not free. We are interdependent. Stay Strömstedt said when he quit as editor of Expressen that: “I know the numbers and letters are always interdependent. Good numbers in the financial statements creates opportunities for good letters. Becomes letters worse kroknar also the numbers.”
– Bo Strömstedt is a great role model for me. I his book “Löpsedeln and inside” inside and out. The journalism he represented is still viable, says Peter Wolodarski.
If it is in Bo Strömstedt and Herbert Tingsten footsteps of Peter Wolodarski trampling, embodies him in that case, an updated and digitized version of the strong editor, embracing Povel Ramel and Twitter with the same frenzy. Citing Swedish finance ministers from the 1920s and discusses the editorial live statistics of the digital conversion. As delivers journalistic quality, plus numbers and digital initiatives for the future. In the good story contained no freezers.
Mark Wilhelmson
markus@writer.se
FACTS / Peter Wolodarski
born: april 15, 1978
Growing up: Stockholm
Family Married to journalist Karin Grundberg Wolodarski . Three children.
To: Editor of Daily News since 10 March 2013.
Have done: The first journalistic assignment was in the television program “Children’s Journal” when he was twelve. Public interest woke up in high school and he eventually became a member of the Liberal Youth, where he worked with Luf Greater Stockholm newspaper Radical Forum. Studies at the Stockholm School of Economics. Editorial writer at Expressen and employees of Ake Ortmark of TV8. Editorial writer at the Daily News. Host of “Studio 8″ and “Wolodarski” on TV8. Spent the fall of 2008 at Harvard University, where he studied modern history of Russia, then Jonas Bonnier called and offered him the role as political editor of the Daily News.
media habits: “Twitter is an important source for keeping track of Swedish and international channels, and interesting people. In addition to its own newspaper: Dagens Industri, Swedish Dagbladet and tabloids. Internationally mainly Financial Times gives a very good handle on what is happening in Europe, but also the Economist. Watching less TV than before, but find that Bosse Lindquist documentary ‘experiments’ were outstanding and should be rewarded with journalism award. ”
Footnote: This article was originally published in Summary No. 7-8, 2016.
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