Tag: Finnish media

Helsingin Sanomat’s mea culpa on immigration issues

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Is lack of knowledge about living in a society with a small foreign population an excuse for poor and deficient coverage of Finland’s ever-growing immigrant population? The editor of Finland’s leading daily, Helsingin Sanomat, told Lahti-based Etelä-Suomen Sanomat that it has aimed to raise immigrant, racism and tolerance issues since society and the political atmosphere has changed in the country. 

Editor Riikka Venäläinen states that immigration is a relatively new phenomenon in Finland and therefore offered a sort of mea culpa. “…our job is to give background information, analysis and develop the story from a certain angle,” she said, “When that is done  on a tight schedule, it’s pretty certain that we are guilty of very short-sighted conclusions. I accept the criticism that has to do with reporting on immigration issues.”

I am surprised by Venäläinen’s comment. Don’t Helsingin Sanomat reporters ever travel abroad? Don’t they have foreign spouses? What about foreign correspondents?  Don’t they have any relatives who emigrated to countries like Sweden, Canada and the United States in the past 140-odd years? Haven’t they read our history?

Venäläinen’s admission sounds more like a poor excuse for doing a shoddy job. It reveals as well the lack of reporters with immigrant backgrounds covering such an important issue like cultural diversity in Finnish society. In a way it’s as if 99% men were reporters covering women’s rights issues.

But she does ask a good question at the end of the story whether the children of immigrants, who may speak perfect Finnish, should be called immigrants anymore.

Such a comment exposes, in my opinion, a bold statement by Helsingin Sanomat and how exclusive Finnish society is. How does Venäläinen think Finland could be a more inclusive society? Maybe that would be a good editorial that Helsingin Sanomat could write and show leadership.

Not all dailies in Finland appear to be as much in the dark about immigration and cultural diversity issues as Helsingin Sanomat. Some good examples are Etelä-Suomen Sanomat, Aamulehti, Kansan Uutiset  as well as others.

Writing about immigration is like reporting on any social issue that takes place in our society. The benchmarks are the same: inclusion, social justice, equality, fairness and acceptance.

These are values we should already know at elementary school.

Karjalainen: Rasistinen rikos on suuri häpeä

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: Joensuu-based daily Karjalainen is a bold example of how the Finnish media should treat racism and hate crimes. It writes:  “Believe me, the one who commits a hate crime is no hero but brings great shame on you, your relatives and to the whole town.” 

Migrant Tales reported Sunday about a serious hate crime incident in the town of Lieksa in the northern Pohjois-Karjala region. A group of Finns had attacked three Somalians at dawn. One Somalian received a knife wound and was treated at the local health center. 

The daily, which states that a small group of skinheads were responsible for giving Joensuu a racist label in the 1990s, writes that wiping off such a stigma is no easy job. The community suffers because students, skilled immigrants and foreign investment rarely want to locate in a city that has such a questionable label. 

Karjalainen writes that people in Lieksa are now of the opinion that immigrants that walk at dawn in town are only looking for trouble and therefore it was ok to attack them.  No matter what explanation is given for the attack – according to the daily – one matter is for certain: it was a racist act. 

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Markku Liikamaa

 Sunnuntaiaamuinen joukkopuukkotappelu Lieksan keskustassa ei liene kenellekään enää yllätys. Rasististen vahingontekojen, uhkailujen ja uhoilujen sekä kuntapäättäjienkin rasistisiin rikoksiin syyllistyneille osoittaman ymmärryksen jälkeen voi vain sanoa, että tätähän tässä on jo odotettukin.

Read whole story.

A PS city councilman’s “justified” racism

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Perussuomalaiset Rovaniemi city councilman Hemmo Koskimies is a good example of how some politician have lost touch with  fairness and become the leaders of social-media lynch mobs. In a blog entry headlined, “Justified racism – an ‘n-word’ lives alone in a 75 m2 home,” is an example of how low a PS politician can stoop to promote hatred.

Migrant Tales got in touch with the editor-in-chief  Markku Huusko and later on with producer, Jarmo Koponen, about Koskimies’ claims. A well-respected publication would ask the blogger to put out a correction.

I phoned the City of Rovaniemi as well to verify Koskimies’ claim that an immigrant was abusing the system. The answer I got from a city official strongly suggests that Koskiniemi took the lazy route by not verifying his facts meticulously.

Racism has not only spread in Finland thanks to people like Koskimies’ blog entries but with the silence and inaction of the Finnish media. Their passivity has given racism an ever-greater foothold in Finnish society.

Every one has the right to express himself. Even so, one does not have the right to spread misinformation. When this happens, the publication and journalist have the responsiblity of putting out a correction.

I recommend the following procedure if you read a blog or story that is similar to what Koskimieni wrote: (1) Get in touch with the source and find out if what the writer is claiming is true; (2) write or phone the editor or news editor and point out the mistake or wrongful claim; and (3) if the publication does nothing, get in touch directly with the Council for Mass Media in Finland (JSN).

Unfortunately, the PS’ victory in April has given some politicians the mistaken notion that it is now perfectly ok to insult and spread misinformation against immigrants.

The contempt for the Finnish media of some PS politicians like Jussi Halla-aho reveals how distant their values are to two crucial pillars of the real journalist and writer: ethics and fairness.

With a little bit of our own investigative reporting we can challenge some of the malarkey being published on immigrants and refugees in this country.


Suomen Kuvalehti.fi: Arvovaalit? Päinvastoin

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Comment: This column by Hanna Leivonniemi shows how the Finnish media and the politicians avoided debating during the campaign issues like the role of tolerance of minorities in our society. You guessed it: the media and politicians failed miserably on this front. 

True Finns’ chairman Timo Soini was even asked at an TV election debate what he thought about Jussi Halla-aho, a candidate of the True Finns and a member of the far-right Suomen Sisu association. Soini not only said Halla-aho did a good job as a Helsinki city councilman but the rest of the candidates didn’t even bother to question Soini’s remark.  

Silence is another form of tacit approval of the role of racism in our society. The Finnish media has played a role in this silence.    

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Hanna Leivonniemi

Kun maahanmuuttovastaisuudestaan tunnetut ruotsidemokraatit viime syksynä näyttivät tuplaavan äänimääränsä Ruotsin valtiopäivillä, ruotsalainen yhteiskunta, media sen mukana, ryhtyi vastarintaan.

Read whole story.

True Finns’ Soini lashes out at the foreign media

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

While True Finns’ chairman Timo Soini tries to calm Finns and the outside world that “we’re not extremists, so you can sleep safely,” an eerie lull prevails over Finland as talks begin on forming a coalition government with Kokoomus, Social Democrats and the True Finns. Soini’s most recent outbreak was with the Swedish media, whom he branded on MTV3 as “unbelievable.”

One of the interesting debates going on between people in Finland is figuring out a suitable adjective to describe the True Finns.

Is it a racist party, xenophobic, protest, nationalistic, euroskeptic, ultra-conservative/conservative, populist, far-right or all or none of the above? Probably the answer to that question lies in the following query: What do the True Finns support, according to their election manifesto and blog writings of some of their newly elected MPs?

Would we call the True Finns a party that has spoken out against racism in Finland? Has it championed for women’s rights and gender equality? What about its views on pollution and its relationship with the outside world and Russia? Should Finland ditch the European Monetary Union and eventually the European Union? Do they approve and encourage cultural diversity? If so how is it realized? What about same-sex marriages? What do they think about Islam?

The BBC reports: “They (True Finns) believe that a low birth rate is not solved by immigration, as that results in problems and foreigners do not fit into Finnish culture. Instead, young women should study less and spend more time giving birth to pure Finnish children. That is like a faint echo of Nazi ideology.”

If Soini disagrees with these types of descriptions of his party, he should come out and condemn forcefully those in the True Finns who preach such things indirectly or directly.

If we look at Europe’s right-wing populist parties that have grown in recent years, their popularity is based on three contentions: hostility to Brussels, immigration and Islam. In many respects, the True Finns are no different in their “critical stance” of these three matters.

Some elected True Finns like Jussi Halla-aho, a member of the far-right Suomen Sisu association, said on election eve that the election victory was attributable to its anti-immigration and anti-EU stance.

In a cat-and-mouse game trying not to reveal the true face of the party, Soini has said that only 10% of the support that the True Finns got comes from anti-immigration. Whom do you believe?

I am certain that electing a party like the True Finns will not undermine xenophobia, racism and inequality in this country because the party indirectly gives its blessing to people who support these types of social illnesses.

Thanks to the independent media in Finland and abroad we can rest assured that politicians like Soini, True Finns and other parties won’t be able to mold their own comfortable image of themselves to the public.

There is a lot of concern in Finland as well as abroad about what the rise of a populist, anti-immigration and euroskeptic party implies for our country and Europe. That is why so much has been written about the True Finns as of late.

Should Finland have a Kalevan kisat for immigrants?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

A story in yesterday’s (July 31) Nelosuutiset about the “worrying amount” of immigrants taking part in the national athletics championships, Kalevan kisat, was a perfect example of the scaremongering journalism practiced by some members of the Finnish media. Here is a link to a story that appeared in YLE.

The message of the story was simple – to point out how black immigrant long-distant runners are becoming a growing threat to Finnish runners because more are taking part in the competition. In order to empahsize the message, a picture of a black runner and naturalized Finn, Lewis Korir, was used passing a Finnish runner with ease.

One of the persons interviewed in the story explained how matters have gotten so much out of hand since runners can today easily get citizenship and get paid money to run for some Middle Eastern countries such as Qatar.

The person who was interviewed suggested that since getting a residence permit in Finland was relatively easy, citizenship should be required of immigrants in order to take part in the competition. Even so, what is all the fuss if Korir is a Finnish citizen?

Even though I do not understand the connection between runners getting Qatari citizenship and immigrants taking part in the Kalevan kisat, the story that was aired on Nelosuutiset is a perfect example shoddy scaremongering journalism.

It was also an odd flashback to the Finlandization days when the country “defended” itself by excluding foreigners with the help of draconian foreign investment and immigration laws.

Why couldn’t the story have the following message: Through immigration Finland will gain many future Olympic-class athletes?

During my visits to Finland in the summer, when I stayed with my grandparents, I took part in an Eastern Finland athletics championship in the 1970s. I won the high jump competition but a controversy arose just before I was going to be awarded the medal.

One group said I had no right to the medal because I lived in the United States. After much talking and explaining that my mother was Finnish, they allowed me to have the medal becauase I had won the competition fair and square.

The small example shows that there are a lot of sensible Finns who believe in the spirit of competition not on ways to limit it through nationalism.