One of the leading Swedish bloggers, journalist Per Gudmundson has decided to quit blogging. He had come clean with his employer SVT (Swedish public service television) about his blog and his boss noted that the blog articles goes against the policy for SVT journalists to refrain from public statements or actions that might jeopardize the objectivity of the company [SVT]. And since blogging is a job at below minimum wage his decision was pretty easy. Job: yes. Blog: no.
Per says in his final blog post that “the blog is stopping me in my career and I need to move on”.
Sadly one of the few blogging journalists and one of the best blogs will be no more in the blogosphere. For some, blogs will be a career booster but for others it will be an obstacle. About three weeks ago Gudmundson was named Sweden’s fourth most influential blogger by media monitoring company Observer, but that information cannot have reached his boss at SVT.
UPDATE: Tobias Billström, member of the Swedish Parliament says about the decision:
– I question the management’s evaluation of Per Gudmunson’s blog. Of course a journalist can’t watch a demonstration he participates in himself, but to comment on different courses of events on a blog is not a problem for impartiality.