The Swedish Press, Radio and Television Authority (MPRT) pays financial support to news media, following a decision by the Media Support Board.
In connection with media support being distributed, individual administrators at the authority have been hung out with names and pictures.
SVT has been in contact with several employees who experience the publications as grossly misleading and as pure personal attacks.
- We will pass a serious review, but not false and unfounded accusations, says the HR manager at the authority.
Another employee describes the articles as a coordinated advocacy campaign, which has led to outrage among employees.
- Colleagues are worried and scared, says the employee.
"They want to scare people into silence"
The cultural news has gone through a number of publications on the sites Nya Dagbladet, Newsvoice and Samhällsnytt.
Of these three, the latter has been granted aid.
But everyone has published articles about named employees at the authority for press, radio and television.
The sites describe themselves as an alternative to "establishment media" or to "systems thinking".
The anti-racist magazine Expo sees that they are all examples of the far-right media landscape, but that they differ from each other.
Nya Dagbladet has connections to former National Democrats, Newsvoice is described as a conspiracy theorist and vaccine skeptic.
Social news is critical of diversity and immigration.
But at the same time it is about an authority that distributes a lot of money and has some power, they must withstand critical scrutiny, right?
- Absolutely, but these media work in a completely different way.
It is not about finding system errors, but about attacking individuals and scaring people into silence, says Jonathan Leman, researcher at Expo.
The Director General is concerned
MPRT's Director General Charlotte Ingvar-Nilsson welcomes a factual review of the authority, but is concerned about the development.
- I think it is very unpleasant when my individual employees are hung out, she says and continues:
- The journalists who wrote also know that it is the media support committee that makes decisions, not the individual administrators.
In several articles on the relevant sites, the authority is alleged to discriminate against so-called alternative media, which Charlotte Ingvar-Nilsson denies.
- If we look at alternative media, there were six applicants, four of whom received support and two who did not, says Charlotte Ingvar-Nilsson.
Kulturnyheterna has sought responsible publishers for the sites to get their views on the criticism.
Newsvoice writes in an email that the individual administrators are also in power and therefore should be able to be criticized. Samhällsnytt and Nya Dagbladet have so far not answered our questions.