Iceland parliamentary election

[DC Al Fine]

Has the Green-Left participation in the government (Steingrimur and Katrin if I recall well ?) been any good, bad, neutral, audible, inaudible ? I guess they are also back to what they cuold count on before the "Revolution" back in 2009.

Left-Green got >20% in '09 and are polling around 8% now, so negative obviously.

[DC Al Fine]

Has the Green-Left participation in the government (Steingrimur and Katrin if I recall well ?) been any good, bad, neutral, audible, inaudible ? I guess they are also back to what they cuold count on before the "Revolution" back in 2009.

Left-Green got >20% in '09 and are polling around 8% now, so negative obviously.

Polling badly doesn't necessarily mean their performance in government has been bad, it's all subjective.

Whoops, completely misread the question. I thought he was asking if their participation in government was positive for them.

[DC Al Fine]

Yeah, that doesn't strike me as very IP friendly.

[DC Al Fine]

One element that explains part of the leftist governments decline in the polls is the media situation in Iceland.

Its largest media corporation by far is 365 Miðlar which is primarily owned by Ingibjörg Pálmadóttir, the wife of London based businessman Jon Asgeir Johannesson, the richest "financial viking" from the boom era. Its well known that Jon Asgeir has been using his influence to change stories about himself, but he has also used it against politicians he perceives as "unfriendly to investors" (read leftists) .
 
The second large private media corporation in Iceland is the one centered around Morgunbladid, which used to be the only daily in Iceland and has strong ties to IP. Its dominant shareholder is Gudbjorg Matthiasdottir, who is on the Top 5 of the richest persons in Iceland. She owns a large fishing enterprise and a lot of valuable fishing quota. Editor in chief is no other than Mr. David Oddson, ex IP prime minister (1991-2004), chairman of the board of governors of the central bank (2005-2009), and generally viewed as more responsible for the banking crash than any other politician in Iceland. All though Morgunbladid is nominally independent conservative this translates as Independence Party conservative and the paper is highly biased against the government.

Its of course not uncommon that rich right wingers own the media, but in a small country like Iceland the effect becomes stronger.

The left should have passed a Media Pluralism Act of some kind when they had the opportunity.

What would that entail?

[DC Al Fine]

One element that explains part of the leftist governments decline in the polls is the media situation in Iceland.

Its largest media corporation by far is 365 Miðlar which is primarily owned by Ingibjörg Pálmadóttir, the wife of London based businessman Jon Asgeir Johannesson, the richest "financial viking" from the boom era. Its well known that Jon Asgeir has been using his influence to change stories about himself, but he has also used it against politicians he perceives as "unfriendly to investors" (read leftists) .
 
The second large private media corporation in Iceland is the one centered around Morgunbladid, which used to be the only daily in Iceland and has strong ties to IP. Its dominant shareholder is Gudbjorg Matthiasdottir, who is on the Top 5 of the richest persons in Iceland. She owns a large fishing enterprise and a lot of valuable fishing quota. Editor in chief is no other than Mr. David Oddson, ex IP prime minister (1991-2004), chairman of the board of governors of the central bank (2005-2009), and generally viewed as more responsible for the banking crash than any other politician in Iceland. All though Morgunbladid is nominally independent conservative this translates as Independence Party conservative and the paper is highly biased against the government.

Its of course not uncommon that rich right wingers own the media, but in a small country like Iceland the effect becomes stronger.

The left should have passed a Media Pluralism Act of some kind when they had the opportunity.

What would that entail?

Fairness guidelines, plus if necessary splitting the biggest media corporations and forcing them to sell part of their facilities to smaller companies.

And what of free speech?

[DC Al Fine]

What does Iceland have in the way of immigrants/minorities?

[DC Al Fine]

What's the Icelandic Pirate Party's ideology look like?

I'm always suspicious of Pirate Parties as Trojan horses for right-libertarianism.

Why?