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12 Comm. L. & Pol'y 1 (2007)

handle is hein.journals/comulp12 and id is 1 raw text is: COMMUNICATION LAW AND POLICY Volume 12 Winter 2007 Number 1 Copyright © 2007 Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. THE NORWEGIAN EDITORS' CODE: THE MAGNA CARTA OR THE KING'S MIRROR TO BECOME PUBLIC LAW? ASLE ROLLAND* In 1953, the associations of Norwegian newspaper owners and editors signed an agreement on the rights and duties of the editor: the Editors' Code. Editors consider it their freedom charter, a barrier not against government suppression, but against owner intervention. Since 1995, a proposal to elevate the Code to status of public law has been an issue on the Norwegian political agenda. By 2006, the main obstacle against legislation was finally removed: The Parliament amended the Norwegian Constitution's Section 100 on freedom of expression. The motive for the legislation is to protect editorial independence from media owners, thereby preventing monopoly control over the freedom of expression. However, will enactment of the Editors' Code really guarantee editorial independence, and will editorial independence prevent monopoly control over the freedom of expression? The answer to both questions is no. Controlling the controllers is a classic liberal-democratic dilemma. Can the state control the media without undermining the media's ability to control the state? Will state interference in the relation be- tween media owners and editors enhance editorial freedom or, alter- natively, provide a new means of restricting that freedom? Will the freedom of editors enhance or restrict the freedom of expression? *Senior adviser at Statistics Norway and researcher at the Center for Me- dia Economics, the Norwegian School of Management.

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