The Salvation Army publishes TV4’s Queries

The denomination decides on transparency in facing Cold Facts’ Scrutiny

For the past two months, TV4's investigative program, Cold Facts has collected material for a feature program about The Salvation Army in Sweden. The SA has chosen to release all communication regarding the investigation on its website.

"But we still do not know what the program really will be about", said information officer Bert Åberg.

In the beginning of the year The Salvation Army was contacted by the editorial board of  Cold Facts who wrote that they wanted to "produce a program where we provide a complete picture of The Salvation Army" and where we "present a thorough picture about all your activities, finances, your organization’s values (ethics) and how you operate in Sweden and the rest of the world. "

The denomination elected to be completely transparent and to share/reveal all information, interviews and communications on its website. It’s a concept (strategy) like the one used recently by the Swedish parliament following an interview in the Daily News with Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt on the housing situation in Stockholm

When the Prime Minister deemed that they had misquoted him he released the tape recording of the interview (in its entirety) in order that anyone could garner an impression of the content.

“We want to be completely open to the world and we think it's important that people be free to draw what conclusion they may want  from the questions we are asked by Hard Facts and the answers we provide.”

“We know that investigative journalism is often  based on  the journalist's own bias/hypothesis to build a story designed  be a scoop, a revelation of some kind, which often becomes one-sided and heavily biased", says Bert Åberg. 

As time passed, The Salvation Army has                         experienced a growing divergence between what the Cold Facts side said it wants to question and reflect, and what has in fact been raised in the interviews. The focus has often been on the economics and ethics.

“They say they want to give a complete overview of the Salvation Army. We know nothing about how the program will be presented, however, as an example, in an interview, which lasted 45 minutes, 40 minutes dealt with our views on homosexuality and abortion.”

“We want to be completely open and we are pleased to answer questions about our values relating to moral issues. However, if that’s really what interests you in sharing through the TV program, why not tell us that”, ask Bert Åberg.

“To gain a broad picture of our operations may be virtually impossible by concentrating on questions about how much money we receive from the state and municipalities, if not also asking about how people response to our message and the impact it has  on lives transformed. We are open, but Cold Facts wants to ‘surpise/shock’.

Cold Facts Editorial Director John Åsard chose to hold off making any comments. The broadcast date is not yet known.

Samuel Teglund


(translation: Dr. Sven Ljungholm, Scotland)