The history of Aftonbladet

December 6. 1830 the very first issue of Aftonbladet was published. To celebrate Aftonbladet’s 190th anniversary, the legendary reporter Svante Lidén looked back on the newspaper’s history with great joy – and a little horror.

I first came to Aftonbladet in 1957. I had just turned five and was duly impressed. Previously, I had thought that the newspaper Nya Norrland in Sollefteå, where both my parents worked, was the center of the world. Here I realized I was wrong. Even for an illiterate five-year-old, the sight of the editorial office, the printing press, the clatter and the noise was somewhat overwhelming.

A couple of years later, it was in Aftonbladet that I learned to read.

I did have some help from the school’s ABC book and Miss Eina Edblad. But it was in Aftonbladet and with star reporter Börje Heed as an unaware teacher  that I really learned to read. It was when I spelled my way through foreign words like g-a-s-k-a-m-m-a-r-e (gas chamber) and a-v-r-ä-t-t-n-i-n-g (execution) that I cracked the reading code. The idea that one day in the infinitely distant future I would get to work together with him had no place in my little fantasy world.

I came back to Aftonbladet as a substitute in 1981 and was even more impressed – because now I understood where I was. Came back again in 1989. Then I was no longer impressed but just grateful that I had finally come home. 

Aftonbladet became my second, sometimes also my first, home for 30 years. For better or worse. Aftonbladet, like anything else in life, is a raging roller coaster And it has been for almost 200 years. That’s an astonishingly long time. But still not. Aftonbladet never gets old. Can’t be. Because how can something that is reborn every day ever age?

A sensation

The first issue of Aftonbladet was nothing but a sensation. It’s hard to realize that today when you see the small, unassuming newspaper with four (4!) pages. There were advertisements, some announcements and the breaking news – which Aftonbladet was of course the first to report – that the Finnish-Swedish soprano Johanna von Schoultz had made an acclaimed performance at the opera in Berlin. And Aftonbladet was the first on the same day to announce to the Swedish people that the British government had fallen. From day one, we were what is usually called a “news leader”. We also revealed that the authorities in Finland had tracked down a counterfeiting gang that had specialized in Swedish banknotes. A ”Russian farmer” had been arrested by a bailiff in Norrbotten and now the tangle was about to be unwound.

Already at the premiere, Aftonbladet was a successful product.

Lars Johan Hierta, a wealthy businessman who, among other things, made a fortune from candle manufacturing in his factory on Liljeholmen, was a very free-spirited person for the time. Now he wanted to make a very updated newspaper with the latest news. And to get them, he had to wait for the late mail with newspapers and messages from abroad that his co-workers picked up at the ferry stop over at the Lidingö Bridge. There they found the news the others missed because they printed their papers so early.

Hence the name Aftonbladet (The Evening Paper). We came out late, but we were also first with the latest. It was, of course, sensational. Reading Aftonbladet became a must for the part of the public that was literate and interested in what was going on – just like now.

Hierta paid well and just like today, the country’s sharpest journalists were attracted to the newspaper. After just one year, Aftonbladet was Sweden’s largest newspaper – although the circulation was no more than 3,000 copies. But by the end of the decade we had close to 8,000 subscribers and together with all the non-subscribed issues, that meant that each issue had over 100,000 readers.

Almost revolutionary

But Hierta was not just a shrewd businessman. He was radical, almost revolutionary. He wanted to abolish the Constituent Assembly and deal with the stock-conservative guild system that lay like a wet horse blanket over a large part of business life. He pursued issues such as voting rights (not for everyone, but in any case), business freedom issues, free trade and, not least, freedom of speech. In particular, he turned against the clause in the form of government that gave the king the right to rule the kingdom alone.

The king, the imported from France Karl XIV Johan, was not happy. He thought the newspaper was reprehensible (although he said it in French because his Swedish was deplorable) and the courtiers of course agreed with him. Mathias Rosenblad, the Minister of Justice, stated in his analysis that Aftonbladet was an ”unclean spirit rising from the abyss”. Hierta, 29, pushed his questions. The king, 67, ran his.

Aftonbladet was banned several times. Just to immediately come out with a new name: The new Aftonbladet, the newer Aftonbladet, the fourth Aftonbladet, the fifth… right up to the Twenty-sixth Aftonbladet. In the first five years, Aftonbladet was prosecuted five times.

And the employee Anders Lindeberg was sentenced to death and was to be beheaded for insulting the king in the columns, but was pardoned to three years in prison since the affair became too embarrassing for the authorities. He found out that he would be released if he pleaded for mercy. But he refused. In the end, the authorities were forced to trick him out of prison and close the door behind him to get rid of the trouble.

Aftonbladet employee Anders Lindeberg was sentenced to death for insulting the king.

The magazine was withdrawn several times, but always came back. Finally, after ten years, the king had enough and gave up.

When Lars Johan Hierta sold the newspaper in 1851, Aftonbladet was the country’s largest and most influential newspaper. It was a newspaper with fast news, sharp polemics, gossip and leaden seriousness. Aftonbladet led the development to modernize Sweden and to modernize the Swedish press. And it is a work we continue with to this day.

And will continue to do so for at least another 200 years.

Aftonbladet’s editorial office is not unlike other workplaces, it happens that employees take a liking to each other. Love and scheming are part of everyday life, of course it can cause a lot of trouble for those involved. But it is not unique. Seen in that context, the love story between Lars Johan Hierta and the beautiful priest’s daughter Wendela Hebbe is nothing sensational. The sensational thing was that Hierta had hired Wendela Hebbe as a reporter for the newspaper. A woman who worked at a newspaper! And this 90 years before Sweden’s women in 1921 even got the right to vote.

Wendela Hebbe was married to Clemens Hebbe, landowner in decline. Clemens had debts up to his ears. He fled to the United States to escape the misery, leaving his wife and three daughters in the lurch.

Wendela brought a heavy literary and cultural baggage with her from Jönköping to Stockholm, where she met Lars Johan Hierta. It wasn’t long before they almost moved in together.

But before that he had hired her as the country’s first culture editor. But above all, she became Sweden’s first female journalist. Her salary, like everyone else’s at Aftonbladet, was good: 1,000 riksdaler a year, and she soon made a name for herself as a critic and socially engaged reporter who wrote about poor and vulnerable wretches during a time when there was otherwise almost only Charles Dickens and a couple more that did.

Wendela never divorced her Clemens, but her relationship with the similarly married Lars Johan Hierta became very close and intimate.

In 1852, their common son was born, who was named Edvard Faustman. Because Edvard was a so-called illegitimate and was never recognized by his parents, he was sent away, far away. He ended up with a doctor couple outside of Berlin and got their last name. He also received financial assistance from his mother and father but had no idea of his origins even though he periodically lived at Lars Johan and Wendela’s house.

It was only when he became an adult that he learned the truth about uncle Lars Johan and aunt Wendela.

The first supplement

”The days of supplements are over!”, exclaimed corn pipe-smoking thinker and new editor-in-chief Gary Engman in 1981. He, the great TV celebrity, could not have been more wrong. The decision to remove the supplements immediately paid off. The edition was, as usual, our merciless conclusion – and it collapsed. In came the genius Amelia Adamo, who made Söndagsbladet one of the biggest successes in the newspaper’s history.

Amelia didn’t mind brazen nudity in the columns. And apparently neither did the readers. The Sunday supplement became very circulation-driven and all the articles about sex, relationships and other “soft” but vital issues that we didn’t always dare to speak out loud about, but which concern us all, put the ship on the right course again. At least as far as newspaper sales were concerned.

Aftonbladet’s supplements have a history as old as it is proud.

Already 113 years ago, Aftonbladet launched ”Brokiga Blad” – Sweden’s first Sunday supplement. Although after a year, it was not published with the regular Aftonbladet, but together with Aftonbladet’s semi-weekly edition, which was published on Wednesdays between 1908 and 1932 and occasionally had an even larger circulation than the main newspaper itself. At its peak, it had 150,000 subscribers and an estimated half a million readers.

”Brokiga Blad” also came with the newspaper Dagen – which, however, should not be confused with today’s Dagen, which was founded by  Lewi Pethrus head of the Pentecostal Movement and which is the beacon of Swedish christianity in Swedish media. Each number had a big color picture on the front page – just that sort of thing. The very first issue was adorned by his majesty King Oscar II, who only a couple of years earlier had been king of both Sweden and Norway and after the dissolution of the union in 1905 had to change his electoral language from “Brödrafolkens well” to the less grandiose “Sweden’s well”.

He had several children out of wedlock and could probably count himself lucky that the press did not have the same scrutiny of the royal house as it does today. The premiere picture of the king must have spread joy in several draughty outhouses where many royal pictures ended up.

Magasinet

One of the most ambitious supplements was Magasinet from 1977, which contained long, elaborate reports inspired by the American “new journalism” found in magazines such as Rolling Stone and Look. But Magasinet, where Jan Guillou made a comeback after the IB affair sent him out in the cold, did not last long. The big scandal was a made-up interview with Prime Minister Thorbjörn Fälldin, locked up in an asylum.

The article was infamous, to say the least, as was a similar portrait on the transport base Hans “Hoffa” Ericson, where Hoffa worked extra as a trance sexual dancer at a nightclub on the infamous Reeperbahn in Hamburg. However, that report never came out because the editor-in-chief at the time got hold of a sample copy and stopped the entire edition.

Fälldin went to the roof and sued Aftonbladet. And of course he was cheered on by everyone who didn’t like Aftonbladet – and who, for that matter, didn’t necessarily have to like Fälldin.

Fälldin, offended to the core by his Angermanland peasant soul, demanded damages – of one Swedish korona. It wasn’t about the money for Fälldin – but the principle. But it did’nt help. Aftonbladet was freed. But after less than two years, Fälldin was pleased to note that Magasinet was closed.

Aftonbladet has lots of supplements, we publish hockey bibles, soccer bibles, large supplements about films, artists and historical events.

But the biggest supplement of all must still be the pink Sportbladet, which came in the earily 2000 and revolutionized Swedish sports coverage with reports and images that had no parallel in Swedish press history. Sportbladet is published every day and has been an integral part of the main newspaper from the beginning. And there are probably quite a few who see it as a supplement today. For many it is probably even the opposite.

The editors-in-chief

When Hierta sold the newspaper in 1851, the new editor-in-chief Karl Fredrik Bergstedt wanted to surf further on Hierta’s liberal ideals of freedom. But he was concerned about so-called well-groomed language in the columns and wanted to maintain a ”refined tone” in the public conversation. Stilted beyond comprehension, we would say today.

He invited Fredrika Bremer, an international celebrity and a true hero, perhaps the greatest in the history of Swedish feminism, to the newspaper where she published her sensational series of articles ”England om hösten 1851”. The articles came out a little irregularly, perhaps because the boss thought that Fredrika Bremer was going a little too hard. However, Lars Johan Hierta did not think so, he considered that the new owners made a newspaper that was  too soft.

Bergstedt was short-lived in his post, so was his successor Per Erik Svedbom, who in turn was ousted from the chief’s chair by August Sohlman in 1857.

It has never been easy being editor-in-chief at Aftonbladet. Ever. Thorbjörn Larsson, editor-in-chief 1987–1997, said of his predecessor, corn pipe-smoking TV celebrity Gary Engman, editor-in-chief 1981–1985:

”Gary started dying when he came to Aftonbladet.”

When Lars Johan’s daughter Anna Hierta-Retzius – married to Gustaf Retzius, an anatomy professor specializing in monkey skulls and their human counterparts – bought the newspaper back in 1884, Sohlman was already de-tolled. As well as five other editors-in-chief.

Gustaf och Anna Retzius.

The monkey skull specialist became the manager and now the newspaper would become a fine, decent and reasonably mindless publication. Retzius, who was soon to be elected to the Swedish Academy, waged a very ugly campaign against the national poet Gustaf Fröding, who was locked up in a mental hospital. The professor’s outpourings were so crude that they could never be printed today. He made his decisions both in a leadership position and through submissions that he wrote himself, under a fake name.

After three years, he realized his limitations and let a decent bishop’s son from Härnösand take over the throne. However, he disappeared after only two years. Then the professor’s son Harald Sohlman, a friend of the social democrat leader Hjalmar Branting, took the chief’s chair. After six years, in 1899, he bought the newspaper.

Now the newspaper was about the same size as Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet and Nya Dagligt Allehanda. The circulation was approximately 30,000 copies. Stockholms-Tidningen (closed in 1966, resurrected in 1981 and closed again in 1984) had a circulation of a breathtaking 100,000. But if you included the half-weekly circulation (newspaper makers have always been good at creative mathematics that speaks to one’s own advantage), then Aftonbladet was the largest.

In 1902, Aftonbladet bought its first news van. Partly to be able to get the newspapers out faster, partly to be able to send the reporters out on trips. It was an innovation whose magnitude is hard to imagine today.

Sohlman liked Germany. He was certainly not alone in that. But he wasn’t a journalist either, which was noticeable in the newspaper. It swerved to the right. Readers fled. The advertisers chose other newspapers and during the First World War Aftonbladet received press support – from Germany. Sohlman died, there were a few new chief editors on the swivel chair and behind the scenes Arvid Sohlman, brother of the dead Harald, pulled the trigger. The German friendliness persisted and when Aftonbladet turned 100 years old, we published the congratulations from the far-right German newspapers Berliner Lokalanzeiger and Der Tag on the front page.

Teodor Telander was editor-in-chief from 1924 to 1932. In addition, he was, at just over 50 years old, chairman of the right-wing party’s youth section.  When Arvid Sohlman sells the newspaper to Krister Littorin at Svenska Tändsticksaktiebolaget in 1929, Telander remains in the chair.

But two years later, when Torsten Kreuger, brother of the match king Ivar, takes over, Telander moves on. His next step in his career will be as editor-in-chief of the openly Nazi newspaper Dagsposten – a newspaper that, strangely enough, lived on after the Second World War. In 1950 it continued as Fria Ord and did not go to the grave until 1980. Teodor Telander clung on until 1958. By then the old Nazi would have turned 85.

A newspaper in decline

Torsten Kreuger took over a newspaper in decline. The newspaper market was tough. There were cartel formations, price wars and politics. Politically, Aftonbladet derailed. In the years before World War II, the newspaper chose to take a so-called ”pro-German” line. We urged restraint against the Nazis’ demands for domination. Many prominent writers liked the new order in Germany and saw Hitler as a bulwark against Stalin and communism.

Aftonbladet got exclusive interviews with Hitler and we completely fell into a trance before Hitler’s Olympic spectacle in 1936. The leading side blamed England for the war and we proclaimed from the leading position that Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 was the beginning of ”Europe’s war of freedom”.

But – circulation rose. Not because of German sympathies but rather because of a small round man named Per-Gustaf Peterson. Although hardly anyone knew, neither in the newspaper nor anywhere else. Everyone called him PGP. Or PG.

He joined the paper in 1933, the same year that Hitler came to power in Germany. He was editor-in-chief, but not a politician, not a debater, none of what you were expected to be as an editor-in-chief. He was a newspaper producer.

Together with his wife Bellis, he had pasted together a newspaper dummy (“newspaper proposal”) with clippings from foreign newspapers they had obtained. And with the finished ”newspaper” in hand, he went up to Torsten Kreuger and said something along the lines of ”this is what a real evening newspaper should look like. I want to do it.”

Torsten Kreuger, who had bought all of the newspaper’s shares, liked what he saw. He also had no choice if he wanted the paper to survive.

And PGP made sure it did. The newspaper would be entertaining, contain a lot of sports and fresh novelties. In addition to heavy news, there would be short texts, punchy headlines, good pictures, series, personal chronicles, short stories, fun reports. And a sports supplement every Sunday.

He didn’t stay inside his glass tower, but rolled up his sleeves and roamed around the editorial office. And circulation rose. He endured during the German years, he was forced to put up with the leader’s bashing of Hitler and the nefarious journalism he was also the head of.

The Nazis in Germany hailed the newspaper as one of the few sane ones in the country. We published outright lies that were written in Berlin – although not as often as the communist newspaper Ny Dag published tributes to Stalin written in stout Swedish in Moscow. Ny Dag did it on a daily basis. When Germany invaded Norway and Denmark in 1941, readers began to withdraw.

It took until 1943, when one or two things happened that did not go Germany’s way, before Kreuger put his foot down and started kicking the Nazis out of the editorial office.

Readers came back.

But then, on November 16, 1944 came – THE EXPRESSEN.

The competitor

The first front page was a historic scoop: Expressen had met six British pilots who had made an emergency landing in Sweden after sinking the German battleship Tirpitz off Tromsø.

Expressen got off to a flying start and within just four years, it was bigger than Aftonbladet in the rural areas. Just eight years after its launch, Expressen became the country’s largest newspaper.

Kreuger also owned Stockholms-Tidningen, which was located in the same building as Aftonbladet at Vattugatan 12 in Stockholm. Then, in October 1956, came the news that felt like an earthquake: Aftonbladet and Stockholms-Tidningen were to be sold to LO (the Swedish Trade Union Confederation)! People could hardly believe their ears. The Social Democrats are taking over. PGP, who had no idea about the deal, was so furious that he resigned after a month. The Social Democratic newspapers were connected to A-pressen, a cooperation organization for the Social Democratic party press.

In 1950, there were 29 newspapers, many of which were leaders in their regions, and most were hopelessly mismanaged. The political commissars at the top were often dissatisfied with how they were run and that they did not always follow the party line to the letter. The new owners, LO, soon found out that Aftonbladet was a difficult charge to manage. But Kreuger was satisfied; he made 40 million from the deal.

DN’s editor-in-chief Herbert Tingsten declared that the deal was distasteful. He also thought that Aftonbladet was a terrible newspaper that should not even be mentioned in his prestigious publication. In fact, it was mentioned just once in four years; when LO took over..”

The newspaper started using new tactics – again. Newspaper maker Sven Sörmark, who first became editor-in-chief in 1961, introduced contests like Banco that significantly boosted circulation. The comic character Tuffa Viktor – a British misogynistic drunk who would never be allowed in the newspaper today – made the front page, along with TV pages and horoscopes, stunts, and celebrity reports, and the long-running feature Vi-5.

And the circulation soared like a rocket.

We had 15 national editorial offices around the country; we were literally everywhere. We ”increased the most.” Aftonbladet under LO was supposed to be non-political in its news coverage, but that didn’t last long. It increasingly leaned left and soon some started calling it Pravda.

Editor-in-chief Kurt Samuelsson resigned in 1965 after what can only be described as a palace coup. The successes continued throughout the 1960s. In 1968, we beat Dagens Nyheter and now only Expressen was bigger. Two years later, we reached an astonishing circulation of 500,542 copies. We were radical, bold, and good – and had never been bigger. But Expressen still led significantly with a staggering circulation of 608,000 copies.

It wouldn’t be until October 17, 1996, that the roles were reversed.

Biggest in Sweden

We didn’t see it coming. But we had felt it was on the way… Things were going well for Aftonbladet.

It wasn’t long since we had moved from our shaky quarters in Klara to Europe’s most modern newspaper building in Globen.

The Globen editorial office was an outstanding workplace, but the move also opened up new opportunities. After several dreadful years at the end of the 1970s and 1980s, Aftonbladet was financially on its knees.

But the ship slowly began to turn away from the brink. This was largely due to Thorbjörn Larsson’s efforts. He finally put an end to the rampant drinking, which was extensive (believe it or not, there was actually a medium-strength beer vending machine in the Klara editorial office), and introduced discipline and order.

As usual, there had been a rapid turnover of editors-in-chief before editorial manager Thorbjörn took over as editor-in-chief in 1987. Thorbjörn and his closest colleagues, Kalle Jungkvist, Niklas Silow, and Anders Gerdin, formed a journalistic dream team of the highest world class. You could feel it immediately when you stepped over the threshold.

When I first came to the newspaper as a temporary replacement, quite a few drunks staggered around the editorial office. The second time, half a year before we moved from Klara, I felt it was a completely different workplace. Polished, sharp, hungry, incredibly purposeful.

Circulation was slowly moving in the right direction. Aftonbladet’s small teams often outperformed Expressen’s large forces in the field. We worked extremely hard and we all pulled in the same direction. And not least importantly, we had the trust of our managers. Sure, we competed with each other in the editorial office. But we also helped each other.

In May 1996, the Norwegian company Schibsted bought Aftonbladet from LO. Well, not all of it, but 49.9 percent. Then they bought a few more percent and millions literally poured into Schibsted’s large treasury.

But LO retained control over the newspaper’s political direction. The Norwegians didn’t care about that; they were interested in the business. Which turned out fantastic for them.

Those of us working on the floor were more interested in more immediate issues. Like being able to beat Expressen every day. Expressen had begun to embarrass itself. They had gotten strange leaders who made even stranger investments. They had made serious blunders far too many times, and their circulation dropped.

Our circulation, on the other hand, was rising. But none of us, who were solely focused on tomorrow’s newspaper and the present happenings, dared to truly believe that we could overtake the giant Expressen, which had dominated so completely for so many years.

However, the newspaper management was on top of things. We were really on the way.

Then suddenly, on October 17, 1996, Niklas Silow called me at home. I was off work and could barely hear what he was saying. There was a lot of noise on the line. Silow was crying and I wondered what disaster had occurred:

”You have to come to the editorial office,” Silow sobbed. ”Come in, we’ve overtaken Expressen!”

I almost fainted. Then it was my turn to start crying. The party at the Opera Terrace that evening was, let’s say, epic.

Editor-in-chief Thorbjörn Larsson on front pages with the headline ‘Sweden’s Largest Daily Newspaper’. Photo: Börje Thuresson

Some of us called Expressen and asked if we had reached Sweden’s largest newspaper?

”Yes,” the switchboard answered routinely.

”No, we haven’t,” we replied. ”Not anymore!”

That was mean.

A couple of days later, I took the morning flight to Malmö. The plane was full. Everyone, I mean everyone, was reading Aftonbladet. When people realized I worked for the newspaper, they started clapping. Everyone loves a winner.

The Internet

1994, Aftonbladet went online. Free news. Madness, thought traditionalists like me, completely convinced that everything would go downhill. Was I wrong?

Absolutely, wrong is an understatement. Aftonbladet.se is a success story of epic proportions. We were the first to launch, we persevered, and what Aftonbladet has done, most major media houses around the world have tried to copy. If we hadn’t stuck it out and fought through those early years, who knows what it would look like today.

The technology wasn’t exactly dazzling, in the beginning, everything was extremely primitive. Mark Comerford, who managed the technology, used an old Mac computer as a server. He had downloaded the web server program from the internet and taught himself how to use it. He had never used image processing software before…

The premiere was an issue of the cultural supplement, which came out monthly.

By mid-August, everything was ready for publication. At 01:00 AM on Wednesday, 24 August, 1994, the executives crowded into Mark Comerford’s small office to see the completed site. The atmosphere was more relaxed than solemn, even though history was about to be made. However, the head of the culture department, Håkan Jaensson, got the gist:

”The electronic magazine is the future, or at least a part of it. In a broader perspective, the electronic highways will change the world. The question is just how quickly and in which direction.”

He was right. As usual.

Then it became more and more. Lars-Åke Berglund sat in his room at the editorial office and sent things out in the evenings. Then he took the train home to Uppsala and continued late into the night.

In this context, it was a bunch of happy, technical amateurs who started the digital adventure. But they were all journalistic thoroughbred professionals.

The site was tightened up. It became more and more like a real newspaper and soon we began to notice how readers, Swedes abroad, and tourists, started to reach out. Often just moments after something had been published. It was powerful. In 1995, a dedicated internet editorial team began to emerge. We once linked to a South African article about the so-called South Africa lead, one of the many theories surrounding the murder of Olof Palme.

”The next day, the newspaper called us and said they had over a thousand readers from Sweden,” says Marianne Schvarcz, who was one of the pioneers.

It began to dawn on us that a new era was approaching. Or perhaps it was already here. We continued with the innovations:

Chats: The first was professional boxer George Scott, who in the fall of 1995 was highly topical ahead of the title match against lightweight champion Rafael Ruelas. Scott later won the match and the title. And in February 1996, Robyn, then 16 years old and still relatively unknown, chatted.

Today’s Question: Introduced in 1998. So far, readers have answered more than 5,000 questions, often with several hundred thousand respondents per question.

Web TV: In the fall of 1996, the first TV clip was shown on the site, when the then Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Sture Allén, announced that the Nobel Prize in Literature had been awarded to Wisława Szymborska.

Live TV: On 2 February 1997, the Rockbjörnen awards were broadcast live from Cirkus in Stockholm. Now, we broadcast live almost all the time.

Sports TV: In September 1997, Sportbladet began broadcasting daily TV segments. The technology was terrible, as was the picture quality. Honestly, it was hardly possible to see the puck, but still. Today, Aftonbladet’s TV editorial team is among the sharpest. And the images are razor-sharp. You can see the puck.

We have blogs and podcasts and everything in between.

And not least: Nivette Dawod’s marathon chat about the coronavirus pandemic, which was nominated for the Great Journalism Prize.

Everything was free at the beginning. But journalism is a very costly enterprise, so we have started to modestly charge for some online content. This is a quite natural development since the print newspaper costs money and no one finds that odd. Over a quarter of a million readers are already Plus customers and if you aren’t already, I recommend you do yourself a favor and become one.

Aftonbladet.se has become incredibly large. Along with the print newspaper, no one else even comes close to our reach. We reach nearly four million readers every day. That’s 40 percent of Sweden’s population.

The day after the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Aftonbladet had – brace yourself – 4.7 million unique visitors and – brace yourself again – 59.2 million page views. That’s actually staggering.

Among the young, aged 16-24, Aftonbladet is almost three times stronger in the news category than its nearest competitor.

”The live reporting on the coronavirus is an example of how innovative news journalism in difficult times can contribute to society and be a unifying force against the spread of rumors on social networks,” wrote Aftonbladet’s editor-in-chief Lena K Samuelsson on the same day that Aftonbladet set a mobile record with 2,931,000 readers.

Lars Johan Hierta could never have even dreamed of such developments in his wildest fantasies. Nor could he have imagined much else that has happened, by the way.

He was born in 1801 in Uppsala. That was the same year Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the USA. It was several years before the first telegraph was invented, nearly 30 years before Stephenson rolled out the first practical steam locomotive, over 100 years before the Wright brothers took to the skies. Long before the car, the bicycle, the telephone, and the lightbulb. Long before the world wars and the moon landings. He was born long before almost everything we take for granted today was even conceived.

Aftonbladet is his newspaper.

And if we are lucky and the world does not end, our descendants will probably still be reading it in 200 years too.

Svante Lidén
Svante Lidén was a legendary Aftonbladet reporter. He wrote this history of the newspaper shortly before his passing, in preparation for Aftonbladet’s 190th anniversary. The text has been translated into English and edited by the Schibsted Media communication team.

 

Editors-in-chief throughout history

• Lars Johan Hierta, 1830–1851
• Carl Bergstedt, 1852–1855
• Per Erik Svedbom, 1856–1857
• August Sohlman, 1857–1874
• Wilhelm Dufva, 1869–1870
• Carl-Erik Ekgren, 1874
• Adolf Hedin, 1874–1876
• Peter August Gödecke, 1876–1879
• Johan Spilhammar, 1879–1884
• Gustaf Retzius, 1884–1887
• Ernst Beckman, 1887–1890
• Harald Sohlman, 1890–1921
• Verner Söderberg, 1921–1923
• Elof Lindström, 1923–1924
• Teodor Telander,1924–1932
• Per-Gustaf Peterson, 1933–1956
• Sigvard Malmberg, 1952–1956
• Allan Fagerström, 1956–1961
• Sven Sörmark, 1961–1962
• Kurt Samuelsson, 1961–1965
• Sven Sörmark, 1966–1969
• Gunnar Arvidson, 1969–1970
• Gösta Sandberg, 1971–1981
• Gary Engman, 1981–1985
• Rolf Alsing, 1985–1987
• Thorbjörn Larsson, 1987–1997
• Anders Gerdin, 1997–2007
• Jan Helin, 2008–2015
• Sofia Olsson Olsén, 2016–2018
• Lena K Samuelsson, 2018–2024
• Lotta Folcker, 2024–