Media Policy

The goal of the Norwegian media policy is to facilitate a varied media landscape and an enlightened public discourse in which all groups in society can take part. Trustworthy, editor-controlled media of high quality is more important than ever. The government wants to secure freedom of speech through the free media, with special protection of editors and journalists. Media pluralism is essential to accomplish these media policy goals.

Financial instruments (e.g. state support for media) as well as regulatory instruments (e.g. accountability and editorial independence) are used to achieve the objectives relating to diversity and quality in Norwegian editorial media.

The authorities contribute to high quality news production all over the country. An important goal is that the state support for media is predictable, unbureaucratic and is allocated by an independent government body at arm’s length from political interesests.  

The Norwegian Media Authority manages the Ministry’s support schemes in the media sector.

The state support for the media consists of these schemes:

• Grants for news and current affairs media
• Grants for Sámi newspapers
• Grants for innovation and development
• Grants for local audiovisual media

In addition to the Ministry’s support schemes, newspapers (including electronical newspapers) are exempted from VAT. The rules governing the VAT sort under the Ministry of Finance.