In a Facebook post yesterday, DV editor Reynir Traustason revealed that Interior Minister Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir insisted upon the firing of journalists Jóhann Páll Jóhannsson and Jón Bjarki Magnússon. According to Reynir, Hanna Birna’s demands came as a result of the pairs work reporting on the now-infamous leaked memo case, wherein Hanna Birna’s assistants are suspected of providing two media outlets with false and disparaging info about asylum seeker Tony Omos, in order to impugn his reputation.
Reynir’s Facebook post has been paraphrased here but can be read in full on Facebook.
“Listening to Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir on [the radio programme] Sprengisandi referring to a private conversation between me and an assistant of hers in which I said I would have to counter his slander with publication. The Minister is quoting the conversation correctly and she would have been present to hear it… The Minister however, does not speak of an angry phone call she made to me in which she wanted the journalists – who were given awards for their work reporting on the leaked memo case – to be fired. She also does not mention that she wanted me to meet with her at the ministry… My main job these past months has been protecting good journalists from slander and defamation.”
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