How Denmark’s public broadcaster DR drifted into NATO’s narrative machinery — from role conflicts to Russophobia and systematic exclusion of critical voices
TFF director
This Danish text criticises a recent Danish Broadcasting, DR, news article responding to the Russian ambassador’s objections to DR’s documentary Krigsplan Europa. The article presented DR journalist Niels Fastrup as a neutral reporter “explaining” the documentary’s research and “countering” the ambassador’s claims — without disclosing that Fastrup himself co‑produced the documentary. This undisclosed role‑conflict is not an isolated mistake but a symptom of a deeper structural problem.
DR’s foreign‑ and security‑policy coverage has, for years, been shaped by a NATO‑framed narrative in which military and intelligence sources dominate, alternative perspectives are excluded, and critical voices on NATO’s strategy, expansion, and doctrines are systematically absent. Scandinavian media research has repeatedly documented this pattern: structural source‑dependence, narrative alignment with Western security institutions, and a lack of pluralism in coverage of great‑power conflicts.
The text below uses the Fastrup case as a concrete example of how a public service broadcaster — legally obliged to ensure balance and independence — ends up functioning as an amplifier of NATO’s strategic communication rather than as a critical, pluralistic media institution.
It has been sent to the involved journalists, relevant editors, the Director-General and Board Chairman of the Danish Broadcasting.
Crude propaganda in support of the “defence alliance” NATO, which is constitutionally incapable of creating security and peace. And a violation of DR’s legally defined public service role and journalistic guidelines.
DR is almost unbearable. What ought to be public service now functions as a propaganda organ which, in its one‑sidedness and loyalty to the system, resembles the Soviet Union’s Pravda more than a modern, pluralistic media outlet. In journalistic terms, DR’s security‑policy coverage is at a level lower than leading Russian and Chinese media.
Just look at today’s DR article in which the Russian ambassador sharply criticises DR’s documentary about Russia’s so‑called attack plan.
The most embarrassing part is that DR’s own “research” is so weak that they first have to defend themselves, and then send Mrs. Kimer out to reinforce the narrative, instead of beginning with the most elementary step: listening to what the Russian ambassador actually says. It is amateurish.
And on top of that, they boast that their “investigation” is based on conversations with NATO intelligence services, high‑ranking Nordic intelligence officials, and top officers in the Danish Armed Forces and NATO. Are they really so dim‑witted that they believe one can conduct a threat analysis by speaking exclusively to one side – and only to military people who, by nature and profession, have a one‑sided perspective?
It is outrageously stupid. And dangerous.
This is simply not how one conducts an analysis of war, peace or security. It is not journalism – it is fear production. It is fearology disguised as public service.
For decades, DR has refused to speak with anyone who could challenge the official enemy image. Not a single critical voice, not a single peace researcher, not a single historian with insight into NATO’s role, not a single independent Russia analyst – and never a Russian scholar. Nothing outside the little duck pond. It is the systematic exclusion of pluralism.
The result is crude nonsense: journalists without any particular knowledge of war, peace, history, doctrine or geopolitics appear as “experts”, while in reality they merely recite NATO’s communication line, which we know is systematically developed for influence.
And then comes the most piquant part of all:
In DR’s article about the ambassador’s criticism, Niels Fastrup appears as a neutral, impartial journalist who “explains” the documentary’s research and “rebuts” the ambassador’s statements.
But DR does not tell the reader that Fastrup himself is a co‑creator of the documentary the ambassador is criticising. He is therefore not an independent journalist covering a case – he is a party to the case, defending his own product without the reader being told.
This is a role‑conflict that violates DR’s own editorial principles, which state that journalists must not become actors in their own story.
And it is not the first time. Fastrup has pulled this stunt several times: first producing a piece of security‑policy dramaturgy, and then appearing as a “neutral DR journalist” when the product is criticised. It is unprofessional, unethical and deeply misleading to the public. A journalist simply must not become part of the case.
DR’s “culture” – the real problem
This is not only about Fastrup. It is about the culture in DR’s foreign and security‑policy editorial departments. A culture in which:
- NATO’s threat narrative is standard
- alternative perspectives are invisible
- intelligence services are primary sources
- military assessments are treated as truth
- criticism of NATO is viewed as suspect
- Russia can only be aggressor
- Danish security policy and the Ukraine line are never problematised
This is not a claim. It is well‑documented in Scandinavian media research, which for years has shown that DR:
- has structural source‑dependence on Western security‑policy institutions
- reproduces NATO’s strategic narratives
- functions as an amplifier of the state’s foreign‑policy line
- lacks pluralism in the coverage of great‑power conflicts
It is not necessarily ill will. But it is tight, politically correct institutional socialisation.
I have for 75 years heard that “the Russians are coming”. It is the same song, decade after decade. Just like Netanyahu, who for 35 years has said that Iran will get nuclear weapons “in a few months”. It is the same fear narrative, reused again and again to legitimise a policy that does not create security – but instead escalates conflicts. It drains tax money from the population in order to give it less and less security – higher risks of war.
But if weapons could create peace, then with the highest military expenditures in history and the absurd 5% of GDP target, we would be living in peace today.
It has never been anything but enemy‑image propaganda. And DR has been the microphone holder for all of it. As part of what I have called MIMAC – the Military‑Industrial‑Media‑Academic Complex, which thrives more than anything else in today’s Denmark.
NATO’s nuclear weapons with the right to first use, offensive deterrence doctrine, forward “defence” and constant expansion cannot create stability or peace. Since the bombing of Yugoslavia, NATO has violated its own – defensive – treaty, which is a copy of the UN Charter, and has made peace and security logically impossible.
And yet DR has never taken a single critical discussion about NATO’s strategy, doctrine or role in escalation. Never. Not even about the alliance’s expansion despite the well‑documented promises Western politicians gave Gorbachev – a main explanation for the tragic war in Ukraine.
Do not believe them for one second. This is not public service.
It is BrainWashington – His Master’s Voice.
And nothing else.
But one wonders whether they themselves know it – or whether they themselves have been brainwashed into the grand narrative and are opportunely ignorant of their role in militarisation.
For that would indeed be the most frightening thing of all.
NATO’s Echo Chamber: How Denmark’s Broadcasting, DR, Is a Mouthpiece for Alliance Narratives added by JO on
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