A Swedish investigative journalist last year attempted to infiltrate the office of Sweden Democrat (SD, ECR) MEP Charlie Weimers, the MEP revealed in a post on X today.
The journalist, Daniel Andersson, worked for a purportedly investigative journalism program called ‘Kalla Fakta’(Cold Facts) at Swedish television station TV4, owned by the telecommunications company Telia, of which the Swedish state is the largest shareholder with over 40% of the shares.
Kalla Fakta last week published a report regarding the YouTube channel Riks, which they claim housed a “troll factory”—an outfit using fake accounts to push out large volumes of opinions on social media. The report has since been criticized and pulled apart by alternative media which have shown, among other things, that Kalla Fakta made accusations against people unaffiliated with either Riks or SD (but supportive of SD’s politics), in one case resulting in the accused losing an employment contract.
Andersson applied for a position in Weimers’ office in Brussels last year, claiming to be part of Konservativa Förbundet, a conservative student organization, not revealing his true employment. While Andersson was not hired for the position, Weimers now wants to know what the journalist’s true purpose was in trying to get a job with his office.
“We are, literally and figuratively, located very far from the party’s communication division in Stockholm and the YouTube channel Riks,” Weimers said on X. “My office in Brussels mainly occupies itself with parliamentary work. … All our work in the European Parliament is openly communicated through our accounts on social media.”
If the true purpose of Kalla Fakta—completely opposite of what is clamed—was to create a report to smear the Sweden Democrats and affect the EU election negatively for us, my office is clearly the obvious target for an infiltration.
Weimers said even if Kalla Fakta had succeeded, they would not have found any “nails [stones] to make soup from.”
Citing earlier questionable reporting from the outfit, Weimers said journalism ethics “doesn’t seem to be a priority for Kalla Fakta,” also pointing out that the hit piece on the YouTube channel Riks was published “at the point in time when it could have the greatest effect on the EU election.”
The Swedish MEP called for Fredrick Malmberg, the publisher legally responsible for Kalla Fakta, to reveal whether the original purpose of the investigation was
to reveal a ‘troll factory,’ or was the purpose solely to find something—anything—negative about the Sweden Democrats that TV4 could publish before the election?
Weimers also requested that Malmberg explain why Daniel Andersson applied for a job with the MEP’s office in Brussels if the purpose was to uncover a ‘troll factory’ at the party’s communications department in Stockholm.
The Swedish Authority for Psychological Defense (MPF) on Thursday reported TV4’s Kalla Fakta program to the national broadcasting oversight board for “misleading the viewers.” MPF employees featured in the report were interviewed at completely different times and not in the context Kalla Fakta presented them in, the agency said.
This article’s headline has been updated to reflect that TV4 is a private channel.
