It was during Friday 25 March 2022 that the host of the satire program Swedish News Kristoffer Appelquist joked about Sweden's independent school system, Barbara Bergström and IES.
In a five-page report to the Review Board, the school founder now writes that the feature breaks as SVT's broadcasting license.
- A ten-minute part of the program was devoted to a grossly propagandistic attack on independent schools in general and me personally, as the founder of the International English School, in particular.
In my opinion, the content is contrary to SVT's agreement with the state to maintain objectivity in its journalism and to observe impartiality in controversial topics.
The propaganda was run by the host himself, in addition to which a responsible publisher on SVT must have released it.
I report the item for review by the Review Board, Bergström writes in the introduction to the report.
Ebba Adielsson is the publisher responsible for Svenska Nyheter and announces that she is aware that a report has been made.
- We have become aware that Barbara Bergström has reported Swedish news to the Review Board and now it is up to them to make their assessment, she writes in an email to Kulturnyheterna.
"Is about humiliating and ridiculing my school work"
Further in the report, Bergström goes through what she perceives as impartial and incorrect in the program.
One of the examples she gives is how the host believes that the work she has done for independent schools has been for her own gain.
- The whole scheme is to humiliate and ridicule my school work for 30 years, and drive the thesis that my driving force has been personal gain.
To that end, one misleading statement after another is made, in addition to a main vignette in which I bathe in money.
Thinks the host is engaged in propaganda
Barbara Bergström does not believe that SVT's Swedish news falls into the categories of satire and entertainment in this context.
Therefore, she wants the Review Board, which is part of the Swedish Radio and Television Authority, to blame the program and SVT.
- The fact that the program is placed in the genre "entertainment" can not in itself abolish the basic guidelines for objectivity and impartiality in controversial topics that Swedish Television has undertaken to follow.
In the feature I report, the host engages in active propaganda for a specific political line - with unreasonable statements and gross one-sidedness, in addition to a personal attack of a libelous nature on me as a zealot in school, writes Barbara Bergström in the report.
Kulturnyheterna is looking for Barbara Bergström for a comment.