Tiden (newspaper)

Tiden, et offentlig Blad af blandet Indhold (English: The Time, a Public Magazine of Mixed Content) was a royalist and secessionist newspaper in 19th-century Norway.[1] The first issue was published on 28 January 1808 in Christiania (now Oslo); the founding editor was Niels Wulfsberg. Its predecessor was Efterretninger og Opmuntringer angaaende de nærværende Krigsbegivenheder, a military periodical which was published in 43 issues in the autumn of 1807. Great Britain's blockade of Norway during the Napoleonic Wars prevented Copenhagen newspapers from being imported to Christiania; Wulfsberg started both newspapers to fill the resulting lack of information.[1]

Tiden was published twice a week between 1808 and 1811. Wulfsberg was an impetuous editor-in-chief, occasionally printing articles critical of the governing authorities.[2] He used the newspaper to spread his own views on royalty and secession from Denmark; on 29 January 1810 he published an issue fully devoted to Christian August, heir to the Swedish throne.[3] Later the same year he received King Frederick VI's ire, who during one of Wulfsberg's visits to Copenhagen said: "Be on guard, I don't like your paper, be on guard, I have the power to stop it."[4] Bemoaning the high costs of paper and the low subscription incomes, Wulfsberg decided to cease Tiden '​s publication in 1811. The newspaper did, however, recommence publication in 1813, chiefly owing to Wulfsberg's subservient support of stattholder Christian VIII's governance in Norway.[4][5] Press historian Svennik Høyer writes that Wulfsberg was subsequently "paid and persuaded by the political key players."[6]

In 1814, Tiden ceased publication again; however, in the next year, Den norske Rigstidende was established as a sequel to the paper. It was edited by Wulfsberg and Christian Døderlein. The latter person was the key player in the newspaper; Wulfsberg was primarily occupied with his newly established paper Morgenbladet. Following the cessation of Den norske Rigstidende '​s publication in 1832, Wulfsberg started a new newspaper named Tiden, without any obvious connection to the former newspaper. It is still published as of 2011 under the name Drammens Tidende.[1]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Rune Ottosen, "Niels Wulfsberg", in Norsk biografisk leksikon, ed. Knut Helle, 2nd ed., vol. 10 (Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget, 2005).
  2. Svennik Høyer, Pressen mellom teknologi og samfunn: norske og internasjonale perspektiver på pressehistorien fra Gutenberg til vår tid (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1995), 136.
  3. Øystein Idsø Viken, Makt mellom linene: makt og allmente i Noreg 1807–1814, master thesis at the University of Oslo, 2010, 81.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Yngvar Hauge, Morgenbladets historie. Bind I: 1819–1854 (Oslo: Morgenbladets forlag, 1963), 13–15.
  5. Henrik Grue Bastiansen and Hans Fredrik Dahl, Norsk mediehistorie (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2008), 79.
  6. Høyer, Pressen mellom teknologi og samfunn, 150.