Tag: Finnish media

Why the Finnish media and police do not have credibility with minorities and migrants

Posted on by Migrant Tales

You bump into news and scoops.

When I was making a living as a journalist many years ago, I learned that the best way to get scoops was by having good sources. Even if this is clear, the question is how do you get those good sources so that you bump into news and scoops?

I use today in Migrant Tales the same strategy I used to get news and scoops when I lived off journalism. If you do things the right way with patience, news and scoops will come to you.

Rubbing off the old sell-by dates with new ones is easy. All you need is nail-polish remover, a rag, and a stamp with fake sell-by dates. Read the full story here.  Unscrupulous employers will do anything to exploit migrants and asylum seekers.

A classic example is the most recent example of a food distributor utilizing asylum seekers and changing the sell-by dates of its old products. This news “came to us” because we have a reputation for speaking out for vulnerable groups like asylum seekers. That reputation is backed by solid knowledge of the topic.

The fact that we get big scoops and the national media doesn’t so often is because it represents the interests of white Finnish power and privilege. The same goes for the police. Migrants and minorities don’t turn to the police for help in many cases because they do not trust them.

For these reasons, unscrupulous businesspeople and exploiters of migrants in Finland will continue to conduct business as usual because politicians, the media, and society are more concerned with reinforcing stereotypes and victimizing migrants and minorities than representing and protecting their rights.

We must stand up for our rights. Nobody else can do it for us except for us.

 

 

Exposing white Finnish privilege #42: Labeling and shaming

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Migrant Tales published in 2015 a Hall of Poor and Sloppy Journalism that aimed at highlighting the too frequent shoddy reporting by the national media of our ever-growing non-white community of Finland. A story published by Iltalehti on October 27 is not only an example of shoddy journalism but one that is racist as well. 

One of the oldest stereotypes about the Roma minority in Finland is that they are thieves and cannot be trusted.

The Iltalehti story reinforces such a stereotype with a story about a 30-year-old woman, who shoplifts food from a market and hides it under her skirt. While the story doesn’t use the term “Roma” once, they use code to identify the ethnic group:  “hides produce under her skirt.”

Read the full story (in Finnish) here.

White Finnish privilege #42

One of the ways that white Finnish privilege exposes itself is through the media. The story by Iltalehti of the suspected Roma shoplifter is an example of how stereotypes of specific ethnic groups are maintained.

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Exceptionalism is our greatest enemy in promoting social equality and press freedom in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I used to comment mock the Swedes before for their exceptionalism. The argument is that Sweden is such “a perfect” society that social no-nos like racism simply cannot exist. The same exceptionalism that we see in Sweden is alive and kicking in Finland, too. Exceptionalism is everywhere and you bump into it near-constantly if you are Other. 

Aminkeng A. Alemanji highlights the issue in his doctoral dissertation: “The notion of Finnish exceptionalism is very slow to accommodate changes to its existing framework because it is constructed on the idea of being the best, where the best cannot get any better.”

Finnish exceptionalism doesn’t only apply to ethnic issues but is seen in the narrative of the Finnish media and how it functions.

A prime example of the latter is a recent row between Prime Minister Juha Sipilä and YLE because critical reporting of politicians like the prime minister is suppressed.

Read full story here.

Finnish exceptionalism never became clearer to me than when I wrote in 1989-91 from Helsinki for newspapers like the Financial Times in 1989-91.

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(Migrant Tales November 6, 2011) Kansan Uutiset: Ihmisoikeudet ohjaamaan maahanmuuttojournalismi

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The Finnish media’s “fascination” of racists is a problem

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Here’s a simple question: Why on earth does a newspaper like Etelä-Suomen Sanomat of Lahti even bother to publish a story about a handful of racists who demand that Finland shuts its borders to asylum seekers? 

The answer to that question could shed a lot of light on how the media treats groups that are against our Nordic values, Constitution, and hostile to migrants and minorities.

One of the reasons why the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party saw a rapid rise in the 2008 municipal and especially in the 2011 parliamentary elections was, unfortunately, media fascination over the new “party on the block,” which was overtly anti-EU, anti-migration and especially anti-Islam.

When you ask some analysts why a party like the PS attracted so much interest, you’ll usually get a typical white Finnish answer: They were an option to voter skepticism of traditional parties. If so, why does this skepticism target migrants and encourages politicians like Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari, Juho Eerola and many others to be hostile racists on steroids?

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-8-22 kello 10.23.57

Read full story here.

Continue reading “The Finnish media’s “fascination” of racists is a problem”

The Finnish Perussuomalaiset and their poker-face-racist remarks

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Why would a television station like MTV3 invite a person like Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Youth leader Sebastian Tynkkynen to a talk show about the racist and bigoted statements he’s made about Muslims and migrants? Why would a journalist, who appears to be in the dark about what racism is, treat such a politician with a degree of understanding?

The only answer I can come up with is that the national media continues to be lost about a social ill like racism. It is not only lost about how adversely racism and bigotry impact our society but gives such social ills its tacit approval.

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-7-27 kello 14.49.59

 

Read full story here.

Offering bigotry, racism and stereotypes the opportunity to showcase themselves as something “normal” is like being a surgeon. Say the patient has a heart condition but instead the surgeon decides to castrate the person. It’s the wrong diagnosis for the problem. Inviting Tynkkynen to give his opinions about cultural diversity is similar to the example of the surgeon.

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Ilta-Sanomat continues to publish racist stories even today

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It’s disingenuous of tabloid Ilta-Sanomat to publish a story on Monday about legendary Finnish sports television commentator Raimo “Höyry” Häyrinen’s racist comments without taking a long look at itself in the mirror. 

The story prints in full the racist comments made by Häyrinen when he talked about the black players on the Colombian and Cameroonian team during a 1990 FIFA World Cup match.  

Ilta-Sanomat pulls a fast one on the reader: it publishes something racist, which some readers will appreciate, but pins the blame on the television sportscaster for making the racist comments in the first place.

Shoddy journalism at its worst.

In 1990, or during the early 1990s, Ilta-Sanomat was busy publishing its own racist stories about groups like the Somalis.

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-6-27 kello 17.38.00

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

Below are some shameful examples of ads about Somalis published by Ilta-Sanomat in the early 1990s.

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The Finnish media doesn’t care to write about asylum seekers when they try to take control of their narrative

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Here’s an important question to the Finnish media: Why is it more interested to report on an event organized by far-right anti-immigration groups (see picture below) that are a flop but doesn’t care to report on demonstrations that took place Monday in Helsinki, Jämsä, Jyväskylä, Kemi, Kolari and elsewhere that attract a lot more people? Today’s “A right to live” demonstrations attracted in Helsinki alone up to 500 people. 

The demonstrations organized today were against a new government assessment that alleges that Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia are safe countries to return asylum seekers.

June 20 was World Refugee Day.

Why was most of the Finnish media silent and didn’t care about covering the demonstrations today? Does it show that most of the Finnish media is biased when reporting about asylum seekers?

The only media that wrote about today’s demonstrations were Karjalainen and YLE  in Joensuu. a city located in Eastern Finland.

Turun Sanomat and Demokraatti wrote about the demonstrations as well.

The fact that not even Helsingin Sanomat cared to cover the event(s) raises some disturbing questions about the daily and the Finnish media in general. How impartial is it and does it side with the government on its tough stand on immigration?

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-6-20 kello 23.38.40

A far-right event in Jyväskylä, located in Central Finland, attracted hardly any people on Saturday. It got covered in the media. Read more about this flop on Saku Timonen’s blog.

Continue reading “The Finnish media doesn’t care to write about asylum seekers when they try to take control of their narrative”

How fair is the Finnish media when it reports about racism and bigotry?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

What role has the media played in spreading racism and bigotry in Finland since the 1990s? If it has played a big role, has its reporting improved or got worse? 

The narrative of the media, and that of politicians concerning our ever-growing culturally diverse society, has changed but it still has a lot of room for self-criticism and improvement.

When the media serves politicians and other voices that single out certain groups, victimizing them because they are of a different religious or cultural background, it’s clear that this exercise is costly to taxpayers.

It is ironic that politicians of anti-immigration parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)*, and the tacit support they receive from other politicians from other parties, want Finland to fail in becoming a successful culturally diverse society.

Why would politicians like MEP Jussi Halla-Aho, MP Olli Immonen and many other in this country would not want to see us succeed in building a successful culturally diverse society?

The answer is simple: They would be out of a political job and career.

Let’s go back to the original question: Is Finland’s media racist and bigoted?

While we can’t claim that Finland’s media is racist they do publish a lot of racist and bigoted things. Many of these stories are in code and serve the anti-immigration narrative. One recent example is of a story by YLE on crime rates committed by foreigners in Eastern Finland.

The YLE story’s headline stated that crime committed by foreigners rose by 179% in the beginning of the year. We find out later in the story that we’re speaking of only 206 suspected crimes, which is only about 1.5% of all 14,923 crimes reported during that period.

A story doesn’t have to be “racist” to be inappropriate. Unfair journalism that is slanted is just sloppy and unprofessional journalism.

While not all police ethnically profile people and while not all journalists are multiculturally challenged, it’s those that have these issues that give these professions a bad name.

Take a look below at some of the ads from the 1990s published by Ilta-Sanomat, a tabloid that continues to publish racist stories about migrants, asylum seekers and minorities. Certainly the stories that Ilta-Sanomat writes today have changed from about 25 years ago. Even so, it’s still the same narrative but in a different context.

Some of these diehard narratives are that migrants are rapists, criminals, social welfare bums and just plain bad people that shouldn’t be trusted.

Check out these Ilta-Sanomat ads below for yourselves.

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-4-24 kello 15.24.10

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Human trafficking – get ready for another onslaught of xenophobia and labeling

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Should we be surprised that YLE is planning another one-sided “debate” in April on human trafficking? The problem with this type of “debate,” like the one before that on March 2 on how asylum seekers have fueled uncertainty in Finland, is that it follows a common narrative that white Finland has of Otherness: You are a threat and a problem. 

Certainly we should be concerned about human trafficking but it is hypocritical to overlook the fact that it is our indifference and Fortress Europe mentality that have given human traffickers a good opportunity to exploit asylum seekers fleeing war and poverty.

Blaming asylum seekers, like anti-immigration parties do in Finland and Europe, is disingenuous. Such parties would care less about the plight of asylum seekers and their solutions for such people is frightening.

What is, even more, surprising about the article below is that it is being made by Kirsi Pimiä, the non-discrimination ombudsman. Nowhere in the story does Pimiä challenge that common narrative that migrants are a problem for Finland. 

If I were the journalist writing the story I’d ask her why not one, yes, not one, minority representative is working for the non-discrimination ombudsman.

The YLE article below leads with the following statement:

Marriages of convenience are a new form of human trafficking also in Finland together with forced labor and sexual exploitation. In our country we are treating close to one hundred human trafficking victims.

With provocative leads like the above written in the present xenophobic context of Finland one questions that sincerity of the article and its concern for human trafficking victims.

The most effective way to stop human trafficking is to create humane and easier paths for asylum seekers to come to Europe. Stop labelling ALL asylum seekers and migrants and do something to stop human trafficking, which Europe is guilty of promoting.

Na?ytto?kuva 2016-3-9 kello 8.20.08

Read full story (in Finnish) here.

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