The role of journalism in a time of national crisis: Examining criticism and consensus in Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden during the Covid-19 pandemic

The aim of this chapter is to examine the conditions for the practice of critical journalism in Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden, during the Covid-19 pandemic. We focus on two aspects, one practical and one discursive. First, we focus on journalists’ access to relevant information about the pandemic, as access plays a key role in the practice of critical reporting. Second, we focus on metajournalistic discourse, understood as how public debate about ­journalism shapes the practice of journalism. We found that information access was challenged in all three countries, but in different ways. We also found elements of a metajournalistic discourse. In Denmark, this discourse expressed concern about journalism being too critical, while in Sweden and Iceland, the concern was more a lack of critical reporting. We argue that the differences found can best be explained by the different Covid-19 communication strategies in the three countries.