Chats of Power
2026 Finalist
Media associated with this campaign
Overview of this campaign
We wanted to show structures behind political decisions, normally hidden for the public. The people of Alingsås had elected a board that consisted of four conservative/liberal parties. But in reality the city was governed in a secret alliance between conservatives and socialdemocrats, with support from the former communist party. The leaders of those parties found each other in an evening of heavy drinking. Their relation later became sexual. We understood that the latter risked obscuring the first, the serious democratic damages that where at stage. Because of this we presented the material in an order that first highlighted political intrigues, with backstabbing of both allied and opponents. The material contained strategic considerations about how opponents could be neutralized, and insults where opponents was described based on smell and appearance.
The more sexual content, with pictures and videos, had to be masked, and published with restraint.
Still we understood that we would get only one chance to meet and speak with the involved politicians, in connection with the confrontations. So all publications had to be prepared in advance.
We also did a more "normal" interview with the two full-time paid politicians where we met them to discuss the special situation where the majority and opposition in practice ruled together.
To reduce risks of individual psycological breakdowns we also established contact channels for them to discuss upcoming publications with representativs of our team.
In the morning after confrontations both the conservative and the socialdemocratic leaders of Alingsås declared their resignations. We could immediately publish the news that they resigned because of an upcoming publication in Göteborgs-Posten.
Half a day later we published the first episode of what would become one the biggest political scandal on a local level ever, in Sweden.
Results for this campaign
The story had a major impact, both in media and in politics. In Alingsås a whole new government had to be created. Literally speaking the city hall was rebuilt, even the furniture was shipped a way and changed so that people would not associate it with the scandal.
One of the politicians involved will have to stand in court, suspected of fraud and arson. Parts of the prosecution´s evidence has been collected from the investigation done by Göteborgs-Posten.
Still, half a year after the publishing a research report from Gothenburg University concluded that the democracy has never worked as well as it does now. Politicians from all parties have witnessed about a new climate with sharp debates, but respectful tones.
From all around Sweden, and on all different political levels, we have had testimonies of political chat-forums being deleted.
The story also made it´s way into the cultural scene. On political pods references was made to House of Cards and for the upcoming election in Sweden the Stockholm City Theatre are writing a play.
All major media in Sweden has reported on the story and Göteborgs-Posten broke a lot of records on page views and subscriptions. On the first day of publishing we got more than 1000 new subscribers. The first articles hade over one million views.
At the turn of last year, newspapers, political pods and news shows present their listings of the greatest scoops from 2025 and again the story of Alingsås was again everywhere. When the trade magazine Journalisten (the Journalist) asks chatGPT what was the biggest scoop in Sweden 2025, the answer was the story "Chat´s of power", by Göteborgs-Posten.