Top Two Go in Danmarks Radio Mess

Philip M. Stone October 13, 2004

To borrow from  Hamlet, ”There is something rotten in the state of Danmarks Radio.”.  First, the Chairman of the Board fired the Director General and then the chairman resigned after he admitted a television interview he gave about the firing was somewhat at variance with the truth.

Thus another European public broadcaster has to cast its net out for a new chairman and DG. But the DR mess, while it has its roots in politics, is unlike the BBC’s debacle after the Hutton Report roundly criticized BBC news practices over the so-called Kelly Affair forcing the chairman and DG to resign.

At the root of the Danish mess are cost overruns of some EUR 60 million on a new state-of-the-art facility being built, due for completion in 2006. Funds were guaranteed by a state guaranteed loan that now needs to be increased. That request goes to Parliament and the politicians. Did the chairman think he could buy the loan addition with the DG’s head?

The Chairman, Jorgen Kleener, said he fired the Director General, Christian Nissen, because he believed not enough information was forthcoming from Nissen about the cost overruns. So far, ok.  But then whispers emerged that the Chairman had told Mogens Lykketoft, leader of the opposition social democrats, some nine days before the firing that he was going to do the deed. That smelt of some political shenanigans.

So they both go on a Sunday night television interview program supposedly to deny any conversations took place before Nissen’s firing. Kleener categorically denied there was any such conversation. Then it was Lykketoft’s turn. And he blew Kleener away, saying there had been such a conversation in which Kleener wanted to know if there was any political agreement behind granting the original DR loan, and that Kleener also mentioned Nissen’s imminent firing. Was that conversation the signal of who would be the sacrificial lamb to have the loan guarantee increased? Whatever, there was the public servant saying one thing, and the politician another. Who to believe?

A few hours later, on the Monday morning, Kleener resigned, admitting he had discussed Nissen’s firing with Lykketoft.

Did a deal with Lykketoft go sour?  Kleener did not explain why he would go on television saying something didn’t happen when the politician was there, too, and could make a fool of him if he so wished. And it seems he so wished

Lykketoft’s statement to the Ritzau news agency after Kleener’s resignation stoked the flames a bit more. While being seemingly complimentary to Kleener by urging the government to find a new chairman as respected across the political framework as Kleener, he also said a general manager must be hired “on the basis of his abilities, and not his political opinions.”

From that we know that Lykketoft certainly is not sorry to see the back of Nissen – which no doubt Kleener understood from his political connections and why he thought he was on safe ground in mentioning to Lykketoft the sacrificial lamb, but what are to learn about why Lykketoft nailed Kleener?

It’s either that politicians tell the truth when they are questioned on television interview programs, or it’s that you can never trust a politician not to stab you in the back, and for that matter the knife can also be used in front, too.

Your choice.

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