No, Jonas Gahr Støre does not have a master's degree from Harvard

The Prime Minister's Office will contact newspapers to correct errors. – Sorry, says the Swedish content agency behind it.

If you're a politician, you have to be embarrassingly meticulous on your resume every day. Jonas Jar Sture had to deal with alleged fraud among his ministers. In Sweden, several senior politicians were recently caught cheating on their CVs.

But many newspapers themselves published errors about Prime Minister Storr's higher education.

“You may not know this about Jonas Jarre's store.” It is the name of a video that has been played in many online newspapers over time. In the video it is claimed that:

He holds a master's degree in economics from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris and a master's degree in international law from Harvard Law School.

There's only one problem with this: Jonas Jar Sture doesn't have a master's degree from the prestigious Harvard University.

This is simply wrong, the Prime Minister's Office told Aftenposten.

Reaches 650,000 readers

A Google search shows that the video was published by the newspapers Nettavisen, Dagsavisen, Dagen and Hallingdølen. Aftenposten has played its game on Nettavisen, Dagsavisen and Dagen.

Together, they have about 650,000 daily readers, according to readership figures from the National Association of Media Companies. But according to those behind the video, the most recently played video is Dagsavisen.

Støre holds a master's degree from Sciences Po. It is the common name of the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. After his studies, he worked for two years as a research assistant at Harvard University in the United States.

But he does not have a master's degree from Harvard.

How did the error end up in electronic newspapers?

Unnamed Swedish “video content”.

The video comes from Swedish YouPlay. It is a service owned by Showheroes International. Through this service, newspapers can access video content – And income.

Videos are not marked as produced by others. Instead, they flow seamlessly into the article like other editorial content.

After Aftenposten asked questions about the video on Thursday evening, she disappeared.

– We have withdrawn the video in question from the platform.

This is what Nina Fussli wrote for Aftenposten. She is Head of Editorial Content at Showheroes.

It stated that Dagsavisen has been informed and will publish a correction. Fusselli writes that the company takes the error seriously. She apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused.

– Why does a content agency produce news videos? Isn't this the job of newspapers?

-We define news videos as content covering current events. Jonas Gahr Støre's video is factual, where we combine factual information with archival material. These elements could be used again in different contexts, similar to how a fact box works in print media, Fuseley answers.

-As a content agency, are you qualified to properly validate the videos and other content you create?

– Since 2019, our editorial team, made up of trained journalists, has been providing Norwegian newspapers with video content with strict quality controls and fact-checking according to the ethical guidelines of journalism.

Two editorial members review content before publication, Fusli says.

External videos will be marked in the future

Kathleen Boyer is news editor at Dagsavisen. Aftenposten asked whether other people's content should not be flagged.

Buer responds that future videos will be equipped with a sticker. It should be mentioned that the content is produced by Showheroes.

– It is important for us to correct errors as quickly as possible, and it is unfortunate that we did not discover the error earlier, Boyer replies.

-We have also contacted the Prime Minister's Office and apologized for the error.

Prime Minister Storr himself does not wish to comment on the matter.