"Give them the gift of words"
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Now if you believe that whopper of a PR white lie, and a good one at that, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. You see, this PR fib has gone viral outside of Norway, and it’s been repeated over and over
in such fact-checking publications as The New York Times and the New Yorker. Only thing is that nobody stopped to fact-check this PR lie.
I did. There were never ever any Knausgaard-free days in Norway. Not once, not once, not once. And not one Norwegian newspaper or magazine has reported this. Only the naive press in the UK and in America. Australia, too.
But the fact is that these so-called Knaussgaard-free days were the work of a savvy British publisher in London, who sort of told a lazy reporter there that yes there were many, many Knausgaard-free days in Norway.
I have a favor to ask the fact checkers at the Times and the New Yorker. Ask your fact-checkers to check on this. Ask British editor Geoff Mulligan, who took a mulligan with this shot, if it was really true and how did he know? Geoff?
And then, please show me one source or reference in Norwegian or in a Norwegian newspaper or magazine about these so-called K-free days. Zero, zilch. This entire thing was made up to create buzz, in an innocent yet untruthful way. And now every media outlet in the non-Norwegian world falls for it.
Item: a recent New Yorker blog post notes: ”…some employers have had to impose Knausgaard-free days in the workplace.” Some employers? Which ones? Show me one link or reference from inside Norway. There is nothing about this white lie in Norway.
Some non-Norwegian sources say these K-free days were imposed by employers, other say they were imposed by the government for government offices, some say the entire PR white lie is a complete lie and never happened at all. A Norwegian man on Twitter inside Norway says, no, it was just for lunchtime breaks and it was voluntary, he heard. He heard. Again no links or references. You believe this? It never happened.
The New Yorker teases us where: ”Once you have begun reading the books in Karl Ove Knausgaard’s six-volume autobiographical novel, “My Struggle,” it is difficult to stop talking about them. In the author’s native Norway, where around one in nine people have purchased copies, some employers have had to impose Knausgaard-free days in the workplace.”
Sorry, this never happened. The New Yorker did not fact-check this. I did. We have 3 more volumes to go in English for the rest of the book in the series and for sure there will be more articles and reviews that tell us that there were K-free days in Norway when people were not allowed to discuss the books at work, maybe even at home.
And who imposed this rule in Norway? The government? Corporate heads? Cafeteria mavens?
Friends, this never happened. I wish someone would check the facts.
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About Author
Dan Bloom is a freelance writer who blogs
at CLI FI CENTRAL.
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