Orientering

Orientering (lit. 'Orientation Circle') was a Norwegian left-wing newspaper launched in December 1952 and incorporated into the SV's new newspaper Ny Tid in 1975. The first trial issue was published in December 1952, and from 1953-1960 it was published biweekly. From 1960 onwards, the newspaper was published weekly. Its circulation, initially several thousand, peaked at 19,000 in 1974 and fell to 16,000 by the final issue. Key figures continued contributing to Ny Tid.

Domestic issues gained prominence after Finn Gustavsen became editor in 1957. The debate over Norwegian security policy intensified when the Labour Party’s 1961 national conference allowed nuclear weapons deployment during war or crisis, though it upheld a 1957 ban on nuclear weapons in peacetime, supported by a large Storting majority in April 1961.

In 1961, key Orientering figures founded the Socialist People's Party (SF). Gustavsen and Knut Løfsnes, the party leader, became its first Storting representatives. Orientering became the SF’s mouthpiece. The SF formally acquired the newspaper in 1973.

Between 1974 and 1975, coalition talks among left-wing parties, following the Socialist Electoral Alliance’s success in the 1973 election, led to the Socialist Left Party (SV) replacing the SF, Norwegian Communist Party (which later withdrew), and Democratic Socialists, with independent socialist support.