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METTE - IN FOND
MEMORY
"You lived the drama of life in vibrant
colours. Seeking, dissolving, uniting us in
common purpose of festivals ..."
Those were the first lines in president Jai
Chandiram’s tribute to Mette Jansson who
died in November. The tribute was also
attached to the wreath sent on behalf of the
IAWRT family.
We will feel it, all of us, at the next
IAWRT conference – that there will be
something important missing: the vibrant
presence of Mette with her warmth and humour,
her wisdom and her uncompromising
professional standards.
Within IAWRT Mette has been a pillar of
strength since she joined the association in
1982.
She was the initiator and organiser of the
IAWRT Radio and TV Awards which were
organised for the first time in Manila in
1994, then only for television. All those
who have since then been members of one of
the awards juries will have felt the
strength of her personality, and her
commitment both to professional quality and
to the gender aspect in all programming. As
Gargi Sen, member of the TV jury in Accra in
2003, put it in a shock- and grief stricken
mail: ”She was a no-nonsense person who
would cut through fuzzy logic with
scissors-like sharpness, and yet she had a
core of empathy…Her sense of humour too
would surface at the most unexpected moments
and carry the whole group together, as
though in a torrent.”
Mette was a well known TV personality in
Norway right back to the beginnings of
television in this country in the 60-ies.
She was the first woman newscaster in
Norwegian TV and thus brought down an
important male bastion in the media
environment. She was also in the forefront
of the feminist movement in the 70-ies and
became a watchdog for gender equality in the
Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, where
she stepped the ladder and became part of
the upper management. But she always
remained first and foremost a journalist and
a producer, and she covered the whole field
from presenter at full scale live TV shows,
to political debates – also on radio -
family entertainment and cultural talkshows.
Within IAWRT Mette would share generously
with young and old, high and low from her
wealth of experience and knowledge. We are
the poorer without her, but Mette’s spirit
and committment will live on and remain an
inspiration for IAWRT and its members.
Gundel Krauss Dahl
Friend and colleague
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