Dagensmedier - 2 Stories

1) Sun Media sier opp 120 (By Dagensmedier) 22 June 2006
http://www.dagensmedier.no/index.asp?id=55686

In this story about a Canadian news media company - Sun Media, Dagensmedier writes: "nedskjæringene håper selskapet å spare rundt 30 millioner kroner" This is not correct. The journalist has taken a story from Canada and taken the Canadian currency amounts and incorrectly converted Canadian money with the USA-NOK exchange rate in stead of the correct CAD-NOK exchange rate. This of course is not applicable to Canada because we do not use American money in Canada. Canadian currency is used in Canada. The story should read: "nedskjæringene håper selskapet å spare rundt 26 millioner kroner" The $4.6 million Canadian dollars they hope to save (stated in the Globe and Mail story) is equal to 25.9 million NOK. The exchange rate is $4.6 million CDN dollars x 5.65 NOK = 25.9 million NOK. By using the USD-NOK exchange rate in this story instead of the CAD-NOK exchange rate Dasensmedier has inflated the correct amount by 4 million NOK. How is it that a Canadian story from a Canadian newspaper with amounts listed in Canadian currency get reported with mistakes in this story with the USD exchange rate? That would be like someone in Canada writing a story about a financial transaction in Norway using the Swedish Crown exchange rate or the EURO exchange rate. There are over 20 countries in the world that use the dollar and the exchange rate to the NOK is different for each one. The Spanish in Mexico invented the dollar as currency and this is what was adopted in Canada in 1858. After contacting Dagensmedier the story was corrected three days later. The explanation received was: "It was translated by one of our reporters. He has been told the difference of Canadian and US dollars now!" It is interesting in the Norwegian press when stories from Australia and New Zealand regarding their currencies; it seems there is never any amounts converted with the USD-NOK exchange rate. In the Norwegian press it seems to happen with just Canada. Why?
2) Tror ettermiddagsavisen kommer tilbake (Author not stated) 3 October 2006

http://www.dagensmedier.no/index.asp?id=57830Although there is nothing technically wrong with this story, it is an excellent example of how the Norwegian press will take a Canadian story, publish the American content, and basically forget about the rest of the Canadian content of the story. In this story, originally published in Canada's Globe and Mail Newspaper (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060928.RNEWSPAPER28/TPStory/Business), the original story is all about a Canadian newspaper in Nova Scotia, Canada (The Valley Today) that in November 2006 will launch a late-day/evening edition of its newspaper. The story has 20 paragraphs for a total of 874 words dedicated to the topic of evening newspaper and the newspaper industry in Canada. In one of the 20 paragraphs (a total of 41 words or 5% of the story) the Canadian journalist gives some background historical data on evening newspapers in North America and more specifically in the USA. The journalist of the Canadian story writes: "Evening newspapers had their heyday in North America between 1950 and the late 1970s. In the U.S., the number of late-day papers peaked at more than 35,000 in 1970, but has since fallen to just over 5,000, according to industry data." What happened to the rest of the Canadian story?