The number of publications about Ukraine in Swedish newspapers reached a peak in the weeks after the invasion, to quickly decrease in the spring.

If you compare March 2022 with January 2023, the number of articles has decreased by 78 percent.

SVT and SR's total number of online publications has decreased by 88 percent during the same period (see fact box).

Media reporting on Ukraine - newspapers.

Photo: SVT

- When it was most intensive, we worked a lot with direct reporting.

As soon as there was a new message or a new statement from either side, it went almost straight out on the site.

We have reduced the frequency of that type of reporting, says Magnus Alselind, editorial director at Expressen.

Several media believe that the focus is now on analysis, in-depth analysis and reportage.

Dagens Nyheter, for example, highlights its reporting series by Peter Englund and Paul Hansen as an example. 

- Different stages in the war may require different forms of surveillance.

We have been careful to depict people's everyday life, and to constantly find new angles there, writes Anna Åberg, editor-in-chief at Dagens nyheter, in an email to Kulturnyheterna.

The media's reporting on Ukraine - SVT and SR.

Photo: SVT

“Constant high interest” 

Expressen, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet all state that they do not experience a saturation of the audience. 

- We have had a constant high level of interest since the start, with one exception: the months before the Swedish parliamentary elections.

Then both reading and viewing went down.

But it has recovered and we are at almost the same level as at the start of the invasion, says Expressen's Magnus Alselind. 

When a war goes on for a longer period of time, it is common for reporting to decrease or almost cease entirely.

But several of the publicists we have spoken to believe that will not happen in the case of Ukraine. 

- War is always terrible, but what separates this from many others is that the Ukraine war concerns us even more tangibly, both as a nation and individually.

That is why we have prepared for persistent coverage, writes Svenska Dagbladet's editor-in-chief, Martin Ahlquist, in an email to Kulturnyheterna.