Category: Enrique Tessieri

UPDATE (Mar. 13): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism will be updated separately. To see other examples of opinionated journalism in Finland about cultural diversity, please go to this link.

Mar. 13

Raiskauksia paljastuu aiempaa enemmän – joka kolmas tuomittu ulkomaalaistaustainen or Raiskauksia paljastuu aiempaa enemmän – Tapanilan joukkoraiskauksesta epäilyt vangittiin  (Helsingin Sanomat)

What’s wrong with the below? It’s been a terrible week for Finland’s leading daily Helsingin Sanomat. In reporting a rape case that took place Monday night in northern Helsinki, the police made a mistake by revealing in a statement that the five teenagers were of “immigrant backgrounds.” It is considered unethical to reveal the person’s ethnic identity if the suspect is no longer at large. Two days later Helsingin Sanomat fumbles the ball again with a story about how more rape cases are being brought to justice than before. In the original headline, they state that “every third person sentenced [for rape] is a person with immigrant background.”  That problematic headline, which victimizes all migrants, was changed. It now reads: “The suspects of the Tapanila [rape case] will be held in custody.” What do these two stories reveal about the Finnish police and Helsingin Sanomat? Biased and sloppy journalism that is more interested in reinforcing urban tales than challenging them.

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Now you see it…

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…now you don’t.

Tapanila sexual assault in Finland sends a disturbing signal about our society

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Something terrible happened on Monday night after 9pm at the Tapanila train station of northern Helsinki. A group of 15-18-year-olds were reportedly harassing a young woman on a train, who was later sexually assaulted by the same suspects outside the station, according to Helsingin Sanomat. 

No respectable news organization or police force with integrity should be interested in spreading racial stereotypes or fueling racial hatred. It’s not considered ethical in journalism to mention the suspect’s ethnicity if the person is under police custody.

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Read full story here.

Identifying somebody by ethnicity can be problematic as well. Even if the suspects had been apprehended, the police mentioned in a statement that those under custody were of “foreign background.”

Continue reading “Tapanila sexual assault in Finland sends a disturbing signal about our society”

UPDATE (Mar. 10): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism will be updated separately. To see other examples of opinionated journalism in Finland about cultural diversity, please go to this link.

Mar. 10

PAM: Ulkomaalaisomisteisiin ravintoloihin tarvitaan lisää valvonta (YLE)

What’s wrong with this story? Right from the onset of the news story, in the headline, there is a serious problem: In one shot PAM, a trade union that represents workers in the private service sector, claims that the authorities should have more resources to monitor restaurants owned by foreigners since they exploit their employees. While this may be true in some cases, the article generalizes and labels all restaurants run by foreigners. While there are foreign employers that abuse their employees, the same practice happens at restaurants owned by Finns as well. Singling out only foreign restaurants, and suggesting that they exploit employees, labels and stigmatizes all foreign restaurants.  This is poor and careless journalism at its worst that reinforces prejudices against foreigners instead of  bringing solutions to the table.

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Racism and time

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Racism is harmful because it robs you of one of your most important things in life: time. 

In the same way that Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-70) asked in a poem where sighs, tears and love go,* do we know where time goes after it’s used up? 

Since humans are social animals, attack and prey on others in a pack, how would we collectively rob others of a priceless commodity such as time? How would we deprive such a group of the same rights and privileges we enjoy?

Would racism and discrimination be formidable weapons in this task?

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Continue reading “Racism and time”

UPDATE (Mar. 6): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism will be updated separately. To see other examples of opinionated journalism in Finland about cultural diversity, please go to this link.

Mar. 6

Olli Immonen rajoittaisi somaleiden maahanmuuttoa (Verkkouutiset)

What’s wrong with this story? We all know what Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Olli Immonen’s xenophobic views are about migration and especially about Muslims. No news here. It wasn’t too long ago when Finnish officials avoided using the term “refugee” for Soviet citizens that were fleeing the USSR since the term wasn’t liked by its giant eastern neighbor. Similarly, there were so few migrants in Finland in the 1980s that such people weren’t even called migrants but aliens. In the Verkkouutiset story the term asylum is only mentioned once even if Somalis are considered refugees fleeing a civil war that has ravaged the country since the early 1990s. Not only does Verkkouutiset accept Immonen’s terminology but sides with it by default. The Verkkouutiset story is a good example of how the Finnish media plays down the humanitarian suffering of groups like Somalis by simply regurgitating an Islamophobes claims that “migration [not refugees fleeing war] from that country” must be halted.

 

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Continue reading “UPDATE (Mar. 6): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism”

Migrants are not a burden to Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The letter to the editor below could be perfectly well applied to Finland. In Finland, migrants and minorities are tired of being called a burden by opportunistic politicians that want to gain with xenophobic sound bites voter attention.  

Sensible Europeans know better and more of their voices are needed in the face of this hostile attack against migrants and minorities.

One good recent example of the near-constant attacks against the migrant and minority community is the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party program on immigration policy. On top of this, the PS chairman, Timo Soini, wondered in an interview with YLE in English why so few migrants move to Finland.

Silence shouldn’t be our language when challenging all forms of intolerance.

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Continue reading “Migrants are not a burden to Finland”

UPDATE (Mar. 6): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism will be updated separately. To see other examples of opinionated journalism in Finland about cultural diversity, please go to this link.

Mar. 6

Yli puolet nuorista on kokenut syrjintää – ongelmia eniten kouluissa (Helsingin Sanomat)

What’s the missing story in this story? Migrant Tales has written before about how migrants, or children of migrant parents, are together with sexual minorities victims of bullying. The findings of the survey, which is monitored every year,  doesn’t reveal anything new except that the problem persists. The survey showed that 85% of those aged 15-28 years, and especially migrants and sexual minorities, suffered greater bullying than white Finns. But there is an important question missing in the story: What steps are being taken to challenge this type of anti-social behavior? What do the politicians and policy-makers think about the findings? What do they plan to do about the problem? Continue reading “UPDATE (Mar. 6): Migrant Tales’ 2015 Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism”

Politicians who fuel and support opportunistically segregation in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Tanja Hartonen-Pulkka is a Perussuomalaiset (PS)* candidate in April’s parliamentary elections. Last year she was noticed by Migrant Tales for all the wrong reasons. Hartonen-Pulkka lives in Mäntyharju, a small town in Eastern Finland with a population of 6,200 people that has a handful of foreign residents. She claimed in fall that at the present rate, white Finns will become a minority in this country. 

Hartonen-Pulkka’s anti-immigration rhetoric hasn’t ended even if she got her fingers burned in August. In a campaign poster she hands you the usual anti-immigration rhetoric that is hostile to migrants and minorities living in Finland:

We must limit immigration. We have to get a handle on social welfare immigration and the cost of immigration has to be lowered. We must first create jobs in order that Finns have work before we can think about increasing the number of skilled migrants [to Finland].

Continue reading “Politicians who fuel and support opportunistically segregation in Finland”

PS’ Timo Soini claims he’s “surprised” that not more immigrants want to move to Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Politicians sometimes say pretty incredible things. What do you think if the leader of Finland’s biggest anti-immigration party in parliament states that he’s surprised that not more immigrants move to Finland? And then the leader of this party, Timo Soini, puts the icing on the cake and is quoted on YLE in English as saying that Finland “is one of the least-immigrated countries in the world.”

Come again, Soini, what did you just say?! You wonder why so few immigrants move to Finland. Well we wonder why the PS is the third-biggest party in parliament if there are so few migrants in Finland.

Migrant Tales has written a number of times about the perils of anti-immigration rhetoric and how it scares away skilled immigrants and foreign investment.

We published in 2012 a blog entry on such preposterous views of the PS headlined, Sleeping Beauty and Prince Charming, the super immigrant [3]. Continue reading “PS’ Timo Soini claims he’s “surprised” that not more immigrants want to move to Finland”