As Editor-in-Chief of the liberal Dagens Nyheter, Sweden's largest morning daily, for sixteen years. He left his position in 1998, voicing sharp criticisms of the monopoly tendencies involving the parent company. As an essayist, he contributed to journals in Scandanavia, the German-speaking countries, France and the United States, focusing on aspects of European culture and politics. Among his most noted achievements as an author is a book on the arts under fascism: Staging Society: Aesthetics and Politics in the Third Reich (co-authored with Ingemar Karlsson). He is also on the board of the Swedish Helsinki Committe, the Swedish chapter of Reporters Sans Frontiers, and the Ship to Bosnia project for the establishment of a Cultural Centre for Reconciliation in Lipnica, Bosnia.