Norwegian news in English

I have earlier written about two online newspapers which publish news about and from Norway in English - Views and News from Norway and The Foreigner (go here and here).

Recently I discovered that The Local earlier this fall launched a Norwegian version. The news portal also has similar English-speaking editions for France, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland.

Yet another online news site, "written in English, dedicated to Norwegian affairs at home and abroad", cf. the news site's own presentation, is Norway News.

Although not a news site, Norway.org - the Norwegian official site in the United States - is also a good source for news about Norwegian affairs.

News in English

Last year I wrote about Views and News from Norway, which as the title suggests, provides Norwegian news in English.

I didn't know then that Views and News from Norway already had competition in another electronic news provider, The Foreigner. Actually, it seems that The Foreigner was established before Views and News from Norway!

The Foreigner writes about itself that it "is an online publication for English speakers living or who have an interest in Norway. Whether it's a glimpse of Norwegian news in English in English or entertainment you're after, there's no need to leave your linguistic armchair". You can also get updates from the news provider by following Facebook or Twitter. The editor-in-chief is Michael Sandelson, who was born in London and has earlier worked for the regional newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad's English section.

The Foreigner doesn't focus much on news about the royal family of Norway, though. Provided that I have done a correct search, the last article on royalty was published in early August and dealt with the king and queen's planned visit to Slovakia in late October 2010. Of course The Foreigner could still be useful if you are interested in other topics and the royal family of Norway, but if royalty is your main focus, then Views and News from Norway is the best place to visit, as it provides news about the royal family almost on a weekly basis.

News in English

The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten stopped producing its "News in English" service in November 2008 and has been sorely missed since then.

The California-born Nina Berglund, who helped found Aftenposten's English service, started working on "Views and News from Norway" shortly after the service shut down, and in May 2009 she went "full time" with the project.

She can't promise the same degree of updating or coverage as Aftenposten had, but as she says at the News in English website, the news service will try to decipher the headlines and offer some independent perspectives.

I was obviously not aware of the website when I wrote one of my first articles, "Royal blogs", back in August this year. But while Trond Norén Isaksen - and my blog as well - will bring the most important royal news from Norway, Nina Berglund and her staff will provide more news from Norway, something I am sure that new immigrants to Norway, foreign workers and students, visiting professors and consultants, diplomats and tourist and others who are interested in news from Norway will appreciate.

Nina Berglund is running her project on "a wing and a prayer," concentrating on building up content and hoping for reader donations (there's a PayPal account on the front page) and ultimately ad sales. I can only wish her the best of luck and hope that the website will be a great success, both in terms of contents and also financially speaking.