Immigrant journalists in the Finnish media

The number of immigrants in Finland is growing yet one distinguishing feature in Finland is that this growing number is conspicuously absent in the Finnish media.

Unlike in many other European countries where the appearance of a visibly non-native face on the television screen as news anchor raises no eyebrows, in Finland it is still quite a rare phenomenon. There are no immigrant newscasters or television reporters in any of the four main Finnish television channels, not on the radio either. None of the Finnish newspapers has an immigrant reporter on its staff.

The usual explanation behind this anomaly is that immigrant journalists do not have sufficient command of the Finnish language and so cannot be hired by Finnish media houses. But the issue of language proficiency is becoming increasingly controversial, with critics saying that media houses only use it as an alibi to disguise racial discrimination against non-native Finnish journalists. As one immigrant freelance journalist summed up the matter, “if Finnish employers are willing to have a new point of view they could find a way”.

For nearly two decades the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) ran two programmes, Mundo and Basaari whose aim was to bring immigrants culture and life situations into the public domain. It provided an opportunity to recruit as well as train immigrant producers. But the programmes have now been scrapped by YLE in a bid to cut costs.

There about 100 immigrant journalists living and working in Finland. This does not include foreign correspondents of international media outlets.

Unable to gain a foothold in the immigrant journalists have been forced to exist at the fringes as freelancers. However, none of them relies entirely on freelancing to get by. Instead they supplement their income by engaging in various activities such as translation and part-time teaching.

In Finland freelance journalists fall under the category of entrepreneurs and therefore under the Finnish law are not entitled to unemployment benefits. They have no paid holidays and no sickness allowance. Under such circumstances the vulnerability of immigrant freelance journalists is accentuated because unlike the native freelance journalists who may have social safety networks – friends and family relatives to fall back on – the immigrant is entirely left to his own devices when he either falls ill or for some other reason loses his capacity to work.

The situation is not likely to improve any time soon because Finnish media houses across the spectrum have all bit hit by the economic downturn and are all engaged in cost-cutting measures. Under such circumstances there could hardly be any place for immigrant journalists.

And a recent seminar organised by Reilumedia which included representatives of some of the main media houses did not give cause for optimism either. In spite of the recurrent complaint of lack of job opportunities for immigrant journalist which was raised at the seminar, none of the representatives of the media houses present any concrete proposals as a forward even though they did clearly admit that there is a problem which needs solution.

Linus Atarah