This essay explores how debates that origins from the sphere of cultural journalism relate and respond to democratic values, and how they might function as an instrument when analysed through a democratic perspective. Previous research shows that opinion pieces have a distinctive role within Scandinavian cultural journalism, and by this often serves as an addition to the editorial pages. The purpose of this study was therefore to examine the scope of democratic discourse in a case study focused on the so called “Katerina Janouch-debatten”. A debate established in early 2017 that came to address topics such as racism, migration, post-truths and fake news. The method used was dialogical interaction analysis and the theoretical framework of Jürgen Habermas theories about the public sphere and communicative action. The results suggest that the dialogues in the debate show a procedural search for truth. However, the interaction amongst the debaters rarely result in meaningful and rational communication as whole, but instead the opinion pieces shows tendencies to reproduce a polarity in the discussions. A polarity that on one hand clarifies the political landscape in general – but at the same time, because of diffusion and a meta-perspective in the debate procedure, fend off the main topics in the discussions.