Mads Hansen, Oscar Westerlin | Nettavisen Answers: I stand by everything you wrote in this private conversation

First of all, it's shocking that Nettavisen would allow this to be published.

You may sometimes encounter loose cannons in social media, but I have never seen a journalist take a private conversation out into the public, at one of the country's largest online newspapers – without asking the other party's permission – before.

This is the comment to which Mads Hansen responded:

It stands for everything

However, I of course stand by everything you wrote in this private conversation.

My view, which I expressed to Ludvigsen in each letter, was that I thought it was strange to criticize a television program flatly (“Some adults should have stopped this” and “I hope most people have something else to do that day.” Gross and Horror. I hope the viewing numbers are low.), but don't write anything about why you think that – other than the fact that you don't like one of the participants.

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Thus it is said: I have nothing to do with the “Take Off the Mask” program.

The irony here is that Ludvigsen is writing a case that objective criticism is within her—and the way she does this is, among other things, by criticizing me because I have arrived at objective criticism, yes precisely.

In fact, I can't even describe what I did as criticism. I asked her what she had to say about the program “Av medmaska” – because it was not mentioned in the script. She categorically does not want to answer that.

Which I think is weird, because she refers to it at the end as “a program that makes you sick.”

Struggling to see the point

Ludvigsen writes: “What happens next is that you are invited to a debate or someone expresses their disagreement with me. This does not seem to be the case when criticizing a VG profile. It may seem that Mads Hansen, who is himself associated with VG – and who is almost “A watchdog when it comes to other influencers – he has a desire to protect Westerlin. He wanted me to explain my comment in detail in a personal message to him on Instagram.”

Here I must admit that I find it difficult to understand Ludvigsen's point of view.

I responded to her column, but chose to ask her in a private message. Just because I thought it was fair – rather than making it a general thing. Specifically for the reasons you write in the text.

In the same way I have previously sent the same kind of messages to other commenters and article authors – and without exception received welcoming and constructive responses.

But for Maria, writing to a journalist and asking what she thought was unacceptable about the program she had butchered as a commentator was clearly an act of transgression.

Oscar Westerlein did not respond inside

Finally, let me summarize Ludwigsen's claims about me:

I wrote that I “have a desire to protect Westerlin.”

mistake.

I don't recall Westerlin's criticism at all. On the contrary, I agree, as you write, that Oscar's response was not on the inside.

“I continue to be constantly questioned,” she wrote.

mistake.

I ask one question, which you think is unacceptable in “Av med Maska”. I have consistently refused to answer that. I'm not sure for what reason.

You must bear this

So Maria Ludvigsen: When your job is to publish comments in one of the largest online newspapers in the country, you have to tolerate someone sending you a message and asking you questions about what you write in a matter-of-fact way.

You have to accept that without coming up with conspiracy theories and imposing other intentions they don't have.