Off to Denmark – and Off the Grid for a Few Days

I won’t be posting here this week as I am heading for Copenhagen to give a talk about media ethics in the digital age.

Denmark, it seems, has had something of a rough year on that topic, as Columbia Journalism Review wrote in May:

On April 28, Danish newspaper BT broke the news that the gossip magazine Se og Hør (“See and Hear”) purportedly paid a contractor for the banking services company Nets to monitor the credit card activity of members of the royal family and other celebrities.

A little over a week later, the case has become the biggest media scandal in Danish history, and new revelations emerge each day. It has profoundly shocked a country far more accustomed to being hailed as a model of transparency than for News of the World-type shenanigans. And although many here within the media believe Se og Hør’s to be isolated in its tactics, a few critics have openly wondered whether something isn’t rotten in Denmark’s media culture as a whole.

The foundation associated with a large Danish media group, Berlingske, is putting on a conference to consider the challenges. Nick Davies, the British journalist who is the author of “Hack Attack: The Inside Story of How the Truth Caught Up With Rupert Murdoch,” which took up the British phone-hacking scandal, is also scheduled to speak.

I’ll be back soon to pick up on the many topics that readers have brought to my attention in recent days. Thanks to those who responded in comments, emails and on Twitter to my second-annual report to readers in Sunday’s paper. I very much appreciate the kind words — and have taken note of your constructive criticism as well.