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Finland Mass Media
Finland's first newspaper, the Swedish-language
Tidningar
Utgifne Af Et Sallskap i Abo, was established in 1771
in
Turku. A Finnish-language journal, Suomenkieliset
Tieto-
Sanomat, was created in the same town in 1775. Neither
paper
survived long, however, and it was not until the next
century
that regularly published newspapers appeared in Finland.
Still in
existence today are Abo Underrattelser, founded in
Turku
in 1824, and Uusi Suomi, launched in Helsinki in
1847 (see
table 21, Appendix A).
The latter half of the nineteenth century saw the
appearance
of many newspapers. All the political parties formed in
these
years and in the early twentieth century had their own
newspapers, and, as a result, most Finnish papers were
partisan
until after War World II. After independence in 1917,
there was
another upsurge in the number of newspapers published; a
high
point, never since surpassed, was reached in 1930 when
Finns
could choose from 123 newspapers, each published at least
three
times a week. By 1985 there were ninety-eight such papers,
a
figure that has remained fairly constant since the early
1960s.
Total circulation of papers of this type, twelve of which
were in
Swedish, amounted to about three million by the mid-1980s.
In
addition, there were about 160 papers that appeared once
or twice
a week. One United Nations (UN) study ranked Finland
fourth in
the world for per capita circulation, and surveys have
found that
over 90 percent of Finns read papers regularly, 60 percent
of
Finns viewing them as the most useful source of
information.
Finns preferred to have their papers delivered to their
homes
in the early morning, and for this reason there were only
two
evening papers in the country, Ilta-Sanomat and
Iltalehti, both printed in Helsinki. Another reason
for
low newsstand sales in Finland was that no taxes were
levied on
newspapers and magazines received via subscription.
Most localities were served by only one newspaper, but
by the
mid-1980s Helsinki had about a dozen, and its newspapers,
which
constituted only one-eighth of the country's total,
accounted for
one-third of national circulation. Seven of the Helsinki
papers
were among the twelve largest Finnish papers. Although
many of
Finland's papers were published in Helsinki, there was
little
concentration of press ownership, and there were no
dominant
newspaper chains, with the possible exception of the firm
Sanoma
that owned the two papers with the largest circulation,
Helsingin Sanomat and Ilta-Sanomat.
In contrast to the other Nordic countries, the number
of
newspapers in Finland has remained fairly constant, and
there was
even a slight upturn in the 1980s. This steadiness was
caused, at
least partly, by the government program of general and
selective
support. General support was intended for the press as a
whole,
magazines included; it involved not taxing subscriptions
and
essential materials, such as newsprint, and arranging for
low
postal rates. Selective support, designed to guarantee the
survival of the party press, consisted of partial
subsidies for
distribution and telecommunications costs and direct
lump-sum
payments to papers in accordance with the number of
representatives their parties had in the Eduskunta.
Despite these efforts to encourage a varied party
press, the
number of independent papers rose sharply after World War
II,
increasing from 38 percent in 1962 to 64 percent in 1985.
The
number of nonsocialist party papers decreased most, but
papers of
this type still had more than twice the circulation of
socialist
papers.
Most Finnish newspapers were served by the country's
principal news agency, the Finnish News Agency (Suomen
Tietotoimisto--STT), which was owned by the leading
newspapers
and the state-run Finnish Broadcasting Company
(Yleisradio--YLE).
STT was connected to many of the world's news agencies,
and it
had an extensive network of domestic correspondents. Some
newspapers, however, had direct contacts with foreign news
agencies. There were also agencies, run by political
parties,
that supplied subscribers with political news and
articles.
Agencies of this type were the Kesk's Uutiskeskus (UK),
the KOK's
Lehdistön Sanomapalvelu (LSP), the SDP's Työvaen
Sanomalehtien
Tietotoimisto (TST), the SKDL's Demokraattinen
Lehtipalvelu
(DLP), and the SFP's Svensk Presstjanst (SPT).
By the mid-1980s, there were about 1,200 magazines
being
published regularly, printing a total of about 20 million
copies
a year. The most popular subscription magazine in the
mid-1980s
was Me, published biweekly in Helsinki for Finnish
consumer societies, followed by the Finnish version of
Reader's Digest and by numerous family and general
interest magazines. The magazines with the largest
printings were
those distributed free at banks, retail stores, and other
businesses.
Subscription magazines, like newspapers, enjoyed
general
support from the government in the form of lower taxes and
postal
rates. In the late 1970s, selective government support was
introduced to assist those magazines which, without the
aim of
financial gain, sought to inform the public about
cultural,
scientific, religious, and social concerns. By the
mid-1980s,
several dozen of these so-called "magazines of opinion"
were
receiving state aid.
Finland's state radio and television company, the YLE,
was
founded in 1926, and it began television broadcasting in
1958. It
was a stock company, with 99.2 percent of its stock owned
by the
government and the remainder owned by fifty-seven
stockholders.
As a stock company, it was independent of the state
budget. It
did not monopolize the airwaves, but sold a portion of its
broadcasting time, a maximum of 18 percent, to a private
television company, Mainos-TV-Reklam (MTV). This
arrangement had
been in effect since 1958, when the YLE first began
television
transmissions. Beginning in 1973, Finland also had cable
television, centered in the major urban areas, which by
the mid-
1980s reached about 100,000 homes. It was expected that
Finns and
the residents of the other Nordic countries would be able
to see
each other's television broadcasts via satellite sometime
in the
early 1990s.
In the mid-1980s, the YLE employed nearly 5,000
persons; each
year it broadcast about 5,000 hours of television
programming--
1,000 hours of which was rented by MTV. Since late 1986,
the
YLE's television division has consisted of three channels
(TV 1,
TV 2, and TV 3). The YLE produced about 1,400 hours of
television
itself; the remaining time was filled by programs
purchased
abroad. Swedish-language programming amounted to a little
more
than 500 hours, about 60 percent of which appeared on TV
1.
In the mid-1980s, about 20 percent of television
broadcast
time was devoted to news and current events, another 20
percent
to documentaries, the same amount again to sports and
light
entertainment, 16 percent to television serials, and 12
percent
to films. Imported programs were shown in their original
languages with subtitles. The YLE had coproduction
arrangements
with many foreign companies, mainly those of Eastern
Europe,
Western Europe, and the United States. Finns, 81 percent
of them
on a daily basis, watched an average of two hours of
television a
day; 28 percent held it to be their most important source
of
information.
The YLE's radio division broadcast about 21,000 hours
annually and consisted of three sections--Network 1,
Network 2,
and the Swedish Program. Network 2 broadcast around the
clock.
The other two stations broadcast from early in the morning
until
around midnight. Somewhat under half of these radio
programs were
broadcast on a regional or local level from the company's
nine
local stations, eight of which sent Finnish-language
programming.
About 20 percent of radio programming was devoted to news
and
current events, another 20 percent to general cultural and
public
service programs, and 40 percent to all varieties of
music. In
addition to its national broadcasts, each year the company
transmitted about 13,500 hours--in Finnish and in other
languages--to listeners, abroad. Private radio stations
first
appeared in 1985, and they existed in a score of
municipalities
by the late 1980s. Finns listened to the radio an average
of two
hours daily, and 70 percent of them listened every day.
Twenty-
three percent of the population held the medium to be
their most
important source of information.
The YLE, having been granted its broadcasting
concession by
the government, was obliged to present programming that
was
"factual and fair," provided wholesome entertainment,
strengthened popular education, and infringed on no one's
rights.
A committee, appointed in 1979 to study new legislation
for radio
and television broadcasting, concluded in 1984 that the
YLE's
programs should be marked by truthfulness, pluralism, and
relevance to the lives of the viewers, and that it should
further
the basic rights and values of the country's citizens. The
Administrative Council, the members of which were
appointed by
the Eduskunta in accordance with each party's
parliamentary
strength, was responsible for realizing these objectives.
Three
program councils, the members of which were appointed by
the
Administrative Council and according to the political
composition
of the Eduskunta, were involved in deciding what was to be
broadcast. The upper management of the YLE was also
somewhat
politicized in the belief that this would help to
guarantee that
all viewpoints were adequately aired during broadcasting
time.
MTV's programming, including the news broadcasts that it
began in
1981, was also supervised by the councils. This system of
control, while occasionally subject to heavy-handed lapses
of
judgement, was generally conceded to have brought about
programming that broadly mirrored the country's political
culture
as a whole.
Article 10 of the Constitution Act of 1919 guarantees
freedom
of speech and "the right of printing and publishing
writing and
pictorial presentations without prior interference by
anyone."
International surveys of Finnish journalism have found it
to be
of a high standard and wholly comparable with that of
other
Western nations. The desire for a press reflecting all
currents
of Finnish political life has been given concrete
expression in
government financial support for political newspapers and
journals of opinion. Legislation from 1966 protected the
confidentiality of sources, in that it allowed journalists
to
refuse to reveal the identity of sources unless such
disclosure
would solve a serious crime, i.e., one calling for a
sentence of
six or more years. In 1971 this protection was extended to
television journalists as well.
Information was readily available in Finland. Ten major
publishing firms, two of them specializing in
Swedish-language
books, and numerous smaller houses published some 8,000
new
titles each year. This was an extraordinary figure for a
small
country, especially one the languages of which were not
widely
known abroad. Finns were able to buy books published
anywhere in
the world, and local firms that published the
samizdat, or
underground, literature from the Soviet Union allowed
Finns to be
well acquainted with the opposition groups of their
eastern
neighbor.
According to the distinguished Finnish journalist and
former
diplomat, Max Jakobson, Finnish journalism did not possess
an
adversarial spirit and a tradition of aggressive reporting
to the
same degree as the American press. Also on occasion it was
noted
that the politicization of YLE broadcasting meant that
television
journalists sometimes remembered the political party from
which
they came better than they did their duty to inform the
public
objectively. In consonance with the tone of Finnish
foreign
policy, press and television criticism of the superpowers'
foreign policies was muted to some degree. Finnish press
discussions of the failures of the Soviet Union could be
frank,
but they were couched in gentler tones than was true in
some
other countries.
A reminder of the sensitive years just after World War
II,
when Finland's survival as an independent nation was not
assured,
was a 1948 addition to the Penal Code that threatened a
prison
term of up to two years for anyone who damaged Finnish
relations
with a foreign power by means of defamatory journalism.
Serious
as this penalty appeared, only the president could decide
if a
journalist seen guilty of such defamation should be
prosecuted.
Although not applied for decades, the clause continued to
be an
embarrassment for Finns. Government officials, when called
upon
to comment on the clause, stressed the value of a free
press and
the lack of censorship, noted Finland's good relations
with all
countries, acknowledged that there had been in the past
some
"self-censorship" of the press with regard to the Soviet
Union,
but pointed out that the clause had not been applied for
decades.
Since World War II, leading Finnish politicians have also
occasionally exhorted the press to be more responsible in
its
reporting on foreign policy issues; there were several
such calls
by Koivisto in his first years in office. Such political
tutelage
was by the mid-1980s, however, no longer viewed as
appropriate
for a modern democratic state.
Finnish media were also subject to some popular
controls. The
Press Law of 1919 gave the right of correction to anyone
who held
that material printed about him in a periodical was
incorrect or
offensive. The publication was obliged to grant the
injured party
an equal amount of space within two days after receipt of
the
statement. Failure to do so could result in a fine. Finns
could
also turn to the Council for Mass Media (Julkisen Sanan
Neuvosto-
-JSN), which was founded in 1968 to promote journalistic
ethics.
This body examined each complaint submitted to it and
decided on
its merits. Between 1969 and 1978, the council received
several
hundred queries; it found about a quarter of them
justified and
recommended to the criticized journal or station that it
issue an
unedited rejoinder from the injured party.
Films were subject to censorship in Finland according
to a
law from 1965 that had been enacted by the elaborate
procedure
required for legislation seen as being an exception to the
Constitution. In this case, there was an exceptional
curtailment
of the constitutional right of freedom of information. The
law
dealt only with films shown for commercial purposes, and
it
forbade those that offended good morals, were brutalizing
or
injurious to mental health, endangered public order and
the
nation's defense, or harmed Finland's relations with other
countries. The Film Censorship Board was set up to
administer the
law, and its decisions could be appealed up to the Supreme
Administrative Court. Of 2,688 films reviewed between 1972
and
1983, some 227 were forbidden in their entirety. Of these,
nearly
all were rejected for reasons of morality or potential
danger to
mental health, and 2 percent because they could hurt
Finland's
external relations. The most noted of these films was the
British-Norwegian coproduction, "One Day in the Life of
Ivan
Denisovich," based on the eponymous novel by Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn. Several films from the German Democratic
Republic
(East Germany) were banned after having been judged
potentially
offensive to the Federal Republic of Germany (West
Germany).
Data as of December 1988
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