The best way to catch up on news about Norway is to read Norwegian newspapers. These provide the most up-to-date information about what’s happening in Norway, and they can be a great way of learning Norwegian language as well as immersing yourself in the culture.
Norway has a long tradition for multiple newspapers, and you will find multiple nationwide newspapers as well as local newspapers. Most newspapers tend to be much less politically charged than people form the US are used to, and most of them provide mostly unbiased information about what’s happening.
But which Norwegian newspapers should you read, and which should you stay away from? We are going to take a closer look at the 12 most read Norwegian newspapers in this article, and giving a short introduction to what to expect from that particular newspaper.
So keep on reading to find a suitable Norwegian newspaper for your needs!
PS. This post is about Norwegian newspapers, which are inherently in Norwegian. Follow this link if you’re rather interested in reading news about Norway in English.
1) NRK
NRK is a state-funded news and entertainment provider, and it is considered to have one of the best online newspaper in Norway. Their independent journalists are free to cover a wide range of interesting topics, and the state funding make sure that the newspaper is never getting affected by the views or wants of the advertisers.
In fact, the NRK newspaper is completely ad free, and completely free to use for the end user. It’s a great place to catch up on the latest events in Norway, and most people that I know agree that it’s one of the most reputable sources of information.
NRK only has an online newspaper (as well as a news program on the television), and not an actual physical newspaper that gets published.
2) VG
VG is the largest newspaper in Norway, both when it comes to daily physical newspapers as well as the online version. Many people think that VG is a great newspaper, and they are amazing at certain sectors, but they also suffer some of the problems that most newspapers that rely on ads do; they have a lot of fluff content with clickbait aimed to generate a quick profit.
That said, they also have some amazing qualities: VG is usually the first or among the first newspaper to publish new events and news. I find them to be very good at criminal journalism, and they have some great investigative journalists.
It’s also the place to go (along with TV2) if you’re interested in sports.
VG publishes a daily physical newspaper, as well as the online version of it.
Most articles are completely free on VG, but a few ones are behind a paywall subscription called VG+. But don’t worry; the articles behind the paywall tend to be useless content along the lines of “The x best ways to lose weight”, and none of the real news are paywalled.
3) Aftenposten
Aftenposten is widely regarded as one of the best Norwegian newspapers, with a high level of journalistic integrity. They provide high-quality and in-depth articles about Norway, ranging from pure news to political opinions, cultural articles and everything in-between.
It’s worth mentioning that Aftenposten is technically a newspaper for the Oslo area, but it does cover news from the entire country.
Much of their content is free, but a lot of it is also behind a paywall. It’s a bit of a hassle to read Aftenposten online for free, but you can get access to a lot of good content for free, but be prepared to not be able to read it all.
Aftenposten has their online news, as well as a physical newspaper that is published daily.
4) Nettavisen
Nettavisen is one of the most read online newspapers in Norway, and it’s a kind of mix between an online magazine that publishes clickbaity stories and a real newspaper. It’s definitely not the place to go to for great news articles, but it’s the type of newspaper that will get a lot of traffic from Facebook and other social media due to their clickbait approach.
That said, there are some people who clearly enjoy reading it, and it seem like a great source to catch up on celebrity gossip and read articles about losing weight or stuff like that.
Nettavisen is an online-only newspaper.
5) Dagbladet
Dagbladet used to be a good newspaper a decade ago, but has evolved into the biggest clickbait magnet on the Norwegian market. It’s your go-to newspaper to get your daily dose of “you won’t believe that this celebrity did!!” types of articles.
Dagbladet publishes a daily newspaper as well as their online news. The physical newspaper is slightly better than the online version, but it’s still not what most people would consider to be real journalism.
6) Dagens Næringsliv
Dagens Næringsliv is a Norwegian newspaper that focuses on economy, and it’s well liked within these circles. They publish a lot of content and news regarding different publicly trading companies, so it’s a great place to get news if you are investing into Norwegian stocks.
A lot of the content on Dagens Næringsliv is behind a paywall, but some of it is free. However, you definitely need to pay if you want to read it daily, or else you will be limited to just a very small selection of news.
Dagens Næringsliv runs both an online newspaper, as well as a physical newspaper that is published daily.
7) Klassekampen
Klassekampen is a leftist newspaper that publishes a lot of good content about culture, news and politics. Most of their content is pay-to-read only, but some of their stuff is also free to read.
The newspaper is highly renowned, and their main audience is highly educated people on the left side of the political spectrum. This newspaper is more skewed by its political views than most other Norwegian newspapers.
Klassekampen publishes a physical daily newspaper.
9) Morgenbladet
Morgenbladet is yet another Norwegian newspaper that focuses on high quality journalism. They make a lot of political and cultural content, but also cover a lot of the news. Much of the content is free, but most of it requires an active subscription to read.
Morgenbladet publishes its physical newspaper only weekly.
10) E24
E24 is another economy newspaper that resembles Dagens Næringsliv in many ways. E24 focuses on news relating to Norwegian publicly trading companies, the overall economy of Norway and the rest of the world, and other topics that relates to finance, such as the housing market or the ongoing energy crisis.
It’s a good alternative to Dagens Næringsliv, and a bonus with E24 is that much more of the content is completely free to read. You don’t need an active subscription to read most of the news and articles, but there are some “Plus articles” that do.
11) TV2
TV2 is an online newspaper that also has their own news channel on Norwegian TV (as well as having several regular TV channels).
You will find that TV2 is really good at news and sports, and they tend to be quick to publish news content. It’s a great place to check out if you want to catch up on the latest news in Norway, and I find that their sport journalists are pretty good.
The downside is that TV2 does not really offer a lot of in-depth articles that allows the journalists to really investigate things. They also have a bad habit of making some clickbait content..
TV2 only publishes news on their website and their TV channel, and do not have a physical newspaper.
12) Finansavisen
Finansavisen is yet another economy newspaper that publishes both daily physical newspapers as well as on the online version.
They have a strict limit to a single article per day for non-paying users, so you can technically get access to some of their content, but not most. So be prepared to pay money if you want to read it.
I honestly can’t tell much more about it since I’m not that into finance, especially not when there are several other free alternatives.
Norway has a lot of local newspapers
It’s very common for cities and even towns to have their own newspaper that is covered news in that particular area. These tend to be just like nationwide newspapers, and publish a daily newspaper from Monday to Friday, as well as publishing news online.
Pretty much all local newspapers have all their online content paywalled behind a subscription service, so you will need to fork out around 200 NOK monthly if you want to catch up on these local news.
It’s a great way to get to know a new place, and I find that I spend more time reading these local newspapers than nationwide newspapers.