The best 'Dear Joergen' letter ever

Jeppe alerted me to a brewing storm in the Danish media. Former director of Danmarks Radio (DR) Christian Nissen has, in his new book about his time with the broadcaster, reproduced an email from Culture Minister Brian Mikkelsen complaining about DR's coverage of the Iraq war, and threatening to private DR instead of already announced plans to privatise the second broadcaster TV2. The text of the letter, and a cleaning up machine translation, follow:

Blot til orientering saa blev DR's daekning af regeringen og speciet Irak krigen taget op paa ministermoedet i dag foerst under morgenmaden af mange ministre og dernaest under det formelle moede. Der er en meget stor utilfreshed med DR's daekning som er meget ensidig - de har specielt set sig sure paa et par kvindelige vaerter og Ole Sippel (some mange naevnte som ekstrem i sine udtryk mod koalitionen). Det kom derhen til at udenrigministeren mente at vi ikke burde privatisere TV-2 som var fair i daekningen, men snarere DR. Netopdet forhold et det staerkende borgerlige argument mod privatiseringen af TV-2. Mange borgerlige mener at vi burde privatisere DR, some er anti regeringen, mens de ikke forstaar at vi privatiserer TV-2 som er positiv over for regeringen. Jeg ved godt at det er svaert for dig - i morgen var jeg saa i skudlinien for det var pludselig mit ansvar - men du skal have besked om regeringens holding. Jeg naevnte henvendt til statsministeren, at jeg loebende havde en fortrolig dialog med dig om tingenes tilstand. Og at jeg havde indtryk af at bestyrelsen og nissen tog det meget seiroest, men problemet laa hos Lisbeth Knudsen

If only to [inform you] then DR's covering of the government and specially the Iraq war was gone up on the meeting of ministers today only under the breakfast by many ministers and next during the formal meeting.

There is a very large utilfreshed with DR's covering that is very onesided - they have especially seen themselves cross with a couple of female hosts and Ole Sippel (some many mentioned as an extreme in their expressions against the coalition).

That came there to that the [Foreign Minister] thought that we ought not to privatise Tv that was fair in [its coverage], but rather DR.

The Netopd conditions an it starling-a little [bourgeoi] sargument against the privatisation of Tv.

Many [members of the bourgeois party] think that we ought to privatise DR, some is anti- the government, while they do not understand that we privatise Tv that is positive face to face with the government.

I know well that it's difficult for you - tomorrow I was in the line of fire for it suddenly my responsibility was - but you have to have message about the government's holding.

I mentioned turned for the prime minister that I had a confidential dialogue with you about the state of things.

And that I had impressions of that the management and Nissen took it very seriously, but the problem lay with Lisbeth Knudsen [director of news]

More coverage from the Copenhagen Post.