EDITORIAL • In recent days, Expressen has published articles that just a decade ago would have been branded as “racist,” “hateful,” and “extreme.” The difference isn’t the content—it’s the sender. What once rendered the Sweden Democrats and alternative media as pariahs and ‘hate sites’ has now become respectable journalism. But no apology or restitution has ever been offered to those who first raised the alarm and, amid ridicule, prepared the ground for Expressen. Instead, in a revisionist spin on history, they now take credit as pioneers for exposing migration-related societal problems which they themselves helped create. It’s hypocrisy, it’s shameless, and it’s borrowed plumes from a media player that frequently boasts of its high journalistic ethics.

When others did it, it was hate. But when Expressen now publishes an article titled “These Are the Men Who Rape in Elder Care”, illustrated with photos of the named suspects—all long-distance immigrants—they are the righteous journalists indignantly lamenting how this could happen in elderly care—how society failed with control, responsibility, and protecting the most vulnerable.

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Of course, it is legitimate journalism to scrutinize these issues. The problem is that the same newspaper spent over a decade combatting exactly this type of reporting—when it came from others.

When migration-critical voices—the Sweden Democrats and pro-Sweden media—pointed out the link between uncontrolled migration, lack of background checks, and severe crime, they weren’t met with factual debate but with moralizing campaigns. They were called racists, xenophobes, brown-shirts, Nazis, and “hate sites” whose content wasn’t real journalism but “trash” and hate speech.

The Campaign Against the Sweden Democrats That Landed a Book Deal

A prime example is Expressen’s prominent reporter David Baas. For years, he wrote disparaging articles about the Sweden Democrats, often smearing them with alleged ties to racism, extremism, and Nazi ideology. Sometimes, there were spoken segments in an exaggeratedly ominous tone—bordering on parody.

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The culmination came with the book ‘Win or Die’, an openly hostile and disparaging account of the Sweden Democrats’ history and ideological roots. The book was marketed and reviewed within the same media company that had led the intensive monitoring of the Sweden Democrats over the years. Here, the line between scrutiny and opinion-making was fully blurred—journalistic coverage became a political project.

“Vote No”—with a Ballot Lying in the Gutter

This was even more pronounced on Expressen’s editorial page. Ahead of the 2010 parliamentary election, the then-political editor Anna Dahlberg published an editorial titled “Vote No to Hate“, describing Nazis as knocking on Parliament’s door. Opinion polls showed that the Sweden Democrats were above the parliamentary threshold, alarming Dahlberg and Expressen to the point where they illustrated the article with a Sweden Democrat ballot thrown, crumpled, and trampled in the gutter—imagery leaving no room for interpretation.

This was not a reasoned argument against a party’s policies. It was symbolic humiliation of an up-and-coming parliamentary party and its then 350,000 voters—today it’s about 1.5 million. Simultaneously, paradoxically, the same newspaper spoke about the importance of respect, decency, and keeping “hate” out of public discourse. They themselves couldn’t even respect the fundamental principles of parliamentary democracy.

As everyone knows, the enlightened parts of the Swedish public didn’t heed the scare tactics and defamation, and later that same day it was clear Sweden had a new parliamentary party. Before the 2014 election, a new attempt was made to eliminate the Sweden Democrats from Parliament—this time projecting Expressen’s front page message “Vote No to Racism” over the Parliament building facade. The result was a significant increase for the Sweden Democrats—the realization that voting for SD was not the same as voting for racism became more widespread.

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Anna Dahlberg has since achieved a certain insight into migration policy, but there has been no apology to the Sweden Democrats for the 2010 Election Day editorial. Instead, she is one of those MSM journalists who portray themselves as trailblazers, when in reality they are a decade or more behind.

“Hate Sites”—Until They Were Proven Right

Alternative media, like Samnytt’s predecessor Avpixlat, already published articles on sex crimes, naming perpetrators and their origins as part of extensive efforts to inform about the consequences of migration policy. The journalism, both in content and purpose, was identical to what Expressen is now filling its pages with.

But the response from established media wasn’t to improve their journalism, compete, or add their own investigations. Instead, they stayed silent, covered for politicians, and labeled the new trailblazer media filling the gaps in public coverage as “hate sites.” Nothing from there was considered real journalism. It was incitement, hate, and extremism.

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Expressen actively participated in this, with exposes and hit pieces targeting private individuals and opinion leaders as racists and hate-mongers. Some even received home visits from Expressen reporters with cameras rolling—more akin to trespass than journalism.

Today, Expressen regularly publishes names, photos, and backgrounds on gang criminals and sex offenders—almost always with immigrant backgrounds. Now it is seen as informative. Back then, it was seen as racist and ethically reprehensible.

Lone Alarm Bell Drowned by Media Mob

During this time, the Sweden Democrats were virtually alone in Parliament in consistently warning about the consequences of reckless migration policy, including lack of control over those granted residence permits, insufficient background checks for welfare jobs, and the risk to the most vulnerable—the elderly, sick, and demented.

Instead of evaluating the arguments, Expressen and other media chose to make the party a moral problem—not just a political opponent of other parties, but something dirty to be isolated, suspected, and silenced. The Sweden Democrats were not just wrong on substance, but in their very existence.

Today, the same newspapers write about exactly the consequences the Sweden Democrats warned about—what was already true then and what the party saw coming. Yet they write as if they were first and were never on the other side—the side denying, concealing, and silencing.

No Conversion—Just Covering Bases

Now that reality has finally caught up with reporting, Expressen has switched positions. While it is a good thing that the penny has finally dropped, it is probably just another wet finger in the air, sensing which stance sells the most copies today.

They cover all bases. Parallel to producing the same content as alternative media have done for the past 15 years, trying to win over that audience, they continue to trash the patriotic movement to retain their previous readership.

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No apologies have been issued to those they demonized; no self-critique for the campaign journalism oversteps that ran counter to media’s role as watchdogs of power. There is no shame among the many journalists who now take pride in being “early movers.”

That those who kept silent out of career fear to protect the status quo and maintain the narrow corridor of opinions can now write articles uncannily similar to those of past alternative media is thanks to these very media and the Sweden Democrats, who endured the storm.

And much of that mud was slung by Expressen itself. When they now write about immigrant rapists in elderly care, they do so as if it’s something they’ve always covered, as if it’s always been obvious, as if they themselves spearheaded it. It is downright distasteful.

“Exposing” Issues They Helped Create

Another distasteful fact is that Expressen profits from pretending to expose what they themselves helped cause. With responsible immigration policy—contrary to what Expressen supported—we wouldn’t have rapists in elderly care, no criminal gangs shooting and bombing, no permanent heightened terror threat due to Islamist terrorism, no elderly crime gangs, and no humiliation robberies targeting children.

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And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what Sweden could have been spared if people had listened to the Sweden Democrats and alternative media journalists. It is also not, as Expressen & Co claim, racism that has tarnished immigrants’ reputation; it’s the left-liberal immigration policy that indiscriminately let in the dregs from other countries. With stricter migration policy, better controls, and higher demands, immigrants would have a much better reputation in Sweden.

Collapse of Journalistic and Societal Ethics

If Expressen had listened instead of condemning, investigated instead of smearing, brought forward instead of sweeping under the rug these past 15 years, Sweden would be in much better shape. There would be no need for articles about rapists in elderly care today. Good for our elderly, good for everyone wanting to live in a decent society—maybe not as good for Expressen, earning a bit less from this kind of journalism.

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