mainly Elin Michnik, a talented girl who was apparently related to Adam Michnik, editor-in-chief of
Gazeta Wyborcza
, the biggest paper in Poland.
If you were to believe the articles, Thomas Samuelsson was the most vital employee in the entire Swedish Cabinet Office, an international security analyst with responsibility for all of Europe’s external borders. The main question was whether anyone in Sweden could actually dare to go to sleep while Thomas Samuelsson wasn’t watching over them from Rosenbad.
Schyman let out a small sigh.
The articles were thin on facts, but correct, albeit occasionally so tangential that they were practically irrelevant, but it was all neatly put together, and didn’t contain any actual errors, as far as he could tell, and the main article about the kidnapping was very well constructed, without being over the top.
He put the paper down and rubbed his eyes. They’d sell plenty of copies today, maybe not quite as many as they used to back in the good old days of print alone, but not far from it.
He leaned over to his computer to dig out the latest quarterly sales figures from Newspaper Statistics Ltd, the so-called NS numbers, and glanced at the tables. The
Evening Post
had a way to go to match the sales figures of
Gazeta Wyborcza
, but the gap between the two biggest-selling papers in Sweden had never been narrower. No matter how the other evening paper tried to cover up its print sales, flooding the market with free copies and complaining about the way the figures were collated, the fact remained: the gap between the two behemoths had been shrinking for years, and was now down to 6,700 copies per day. If he could just hold out a bit longer, the
Evening Post
would move ahead and become the biggest-selling newspaper in Scandinavia, and he would go down in history.
He tugged at his moustache. He might have been the first person to receive the Journalist of the Year Award twice, but that wasn’t what he would be remembered for. His legacy would be as the editor who broke new ground, and shifted the ethics of the Swedish media to a new low. There was every chance he would reach that goal with Thomas Samuelsson’s help. Print sales were the only thing that mattered.
He looked out across the newsroom. Patrik Nilsson was already there. He couldn’t have had much sleep. Schyman had banned the editors from sleeping in the rest room, and demanded they at least go home and shower, but he doubted that Patrik obeyed him. He probably went out and dozed for a while on the back seat of his company car.
Berit Hamrin was arriving. With her raincoat and briefcase, she looked like his old English teacher at high school. She had only just survived the transition to film and audio reporting: her speaking voice sounded unengaged and her audio- and video-editing skills left a lot to be desired, but she was a walking, talking encyclopedia when it came to facts and background. Besides, she had been working at the paper since the year dot, and would be far too expensive to pay off.
Sjölander wouldn’t be there for several hours yet: he was a man who guarded his beauty sleep jealously. Elin Michnik had stayed behind to update the later editions for the big cities; he had bumped into her when he arrived that morning.
He had been there thirty years now, first as head of the newsroom, later as editor-in-chief and legally accountable publisher. People could say what they liked about his contribution, but one thing was clear: he really had tried. He had done what had been expected of him without too much reflection or prevarication along the way, and on a number of levels he had succeeded. The organization functioned like a strongly beating heart; distribution channels and sales outlets were assured, the numbers firmly in the black. He had even cultivated a group of potential heirs. The sense of emptiness that gnawed at him would probably have arisen anyway – at least, that was what he tried to tell himself.
Gazeta Wyborcza
, the biggest paper in Poland.
If you were to believe the articles, Thomas Samuelsson was the most vital employee in the entire Swedish Cabinet Office, an international security analyst with responsibility for all of Europe’s external borders. The main question was whether anyone in Sweden could actually dare to go to sleep while Thomas Samuelsson wasn’t watching over them from Rosenbad.
Schyman let out a small sigh.
The articles were thin on facts, but correct, albeit occasionally so tangential that they were practically irrelevant, but it was all neatly put together, and didn’t contain any actual errors, as far as he could tell, and the main article about the kidnapping was very well constructed, without being over the top.
He put the paper down and rubbed his eyes. They’d sell plenty of copies today, maybe not quite as many as they used to back in the good old days of print alone, but not far from it.
He leaned over to his computer to dig out the latest quarterly sales figures from Newspaper Statistics Ltd, the so-called NS numbers, and glanced at the tables. The
Evening Post
had a way to go to match the sales figures of
Gazeta Wyborcza
, but the gap between the two biggest-selling papers in Sweden had never been narrower. No matter how the other evening paper tried to cover up its print sales, flooding the market with free copies and complaining about the way the figures were collated, the fact remained: the gap between the two behemoths had been shrinking for years, and was now down to 6,700 copies per day. If he could just hold out a bit longer, the
Evening Post
would move ahead and become the biggest-selling newspaper in Scandinavia, and he would go down in history.
He tugged at his moustache. He might have been the first person to receive the Journalist of the Year Award twice, but that wasn’t what he would be remembered for. His legacy would be as the editor who broke new ground, and shifted the ethics of the Swedish media to a new low. There was every chance he would reach that goal with Thomas Samuelsson’s help. Print sales were the only thing that mattered.
He looked out across the newsroom. Patrik Nilsson was already there. He couldn’t have had much sleep. Schyman had banned the editors from sleeping in the rest room, and demanded they at least go home and shower, but he doubted that Patrik obeyed him. He probably went out and dozed for a while on the back seat of his company car.
Berit Hamrin was arriving. With her raincoat and briefcase, she looked like his old English teacher at high school. She had only just survived the transition to film and audio reporting: her speaking voice sounded unengaged and her audio- and video-editing skills left a lot to be desired, but she was a walking, talking encyclopedia when it came to facts and background. Besides, she had been working at the paper since the year dot, and would be far too expensive to pay off.
Sjölander wouldn’t be there for several hours yet: he was a man who guarded his beauty sleep jealously. Elin Michnik had stayed behind to update the later editions for the big cities; he had bumped into her when he arrived that morning.
He had been there thirty years now, first as head of the newsroom, later as editor-in-chief and legally accountable publisher. People could say what they liked about his contribution, but one thing was clear: he really had tried. He had done what had been expected of him without too much reflection or prevarication along the way, and on a number of levels he had succeeded. The organization functioned like a strongly beating heart; distribution channels and sales outlets were assured, the numbers firmly in the black. He had even cultivated a group of potential heirs. The sense of emptiness that gnawed at him would probably have arisen anyway – at least, that was what he tried to tell himself.
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