In this fall’s election, just over 120 journalists are candidates. Most are running in municipal elections, and a majority belong to parties on the left.

In total, 54,212 people are running as candidates in the September election, and of these, 126 have stated that they are journalists. Just over 60 percent are retirees, and of those still working, a majority do not belong to established media outlets.

Given how previous surveys of journalists’ political leanings have turned out, it likely comes as no great surprise that most are running for left-wing parties — 27 for the Green Party, 21 for the Left Party, 17 for the Social Democrats, and 14 for the Centre Party.

The Christian Democrats, Moderates, and Liberals each have about ten journalists running. The smallest number can be found in the Sweden Democrats, with six candidates.

High Average Age

According to Journalisten, the average age of this group is high — 67 years. Only 20 are running for parliament and 28 for a regional council, while the rest are municipal council candidates.

Fourteen candidates represent smaller or local parties. Two journalists working for the left-wing newspaper Proletären are running for the Communist Party.

New Survey Blocked

In 2012, journalism professor Kent Asp published a widely discussed study on the political alignment of the journalism profession. Among other things, it showed that the Green Party had three and a half times as much support among journalists as among the general public, and the Left Party had three times as much support.

According to the study, 70 percent of journalists voted for one of the red-green parties, which then did not include the Centre Party.

When a new survey was recently proposed to see if this is still the case, the Swedish Union of Journalists intervened. They claimed that in principle, they had nothing against examining journalists’ values, but at the same time were aware that such surveys have been used against the profession. The official reason given was “survey fatigue” and that the timing was unfortunate.

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