Linus Atarah

The availability of multicultural news and current affairs programmes for immigrants in Finland are so few and far between within the mainstream news channels, immigrants have launched initiatives to plug the gap.

The initiative has given birth to two media channels Panorama television and Monivisio that provide news and current affairs programmes to immigrants either in their mother tongue or in a language that they understand.

Previous programming initiatives by the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) in the 1990s targeting immigrants have been axed with the onset of the economic downturn

The broadcasts of both channels are carried over the internet and cable television as well as on radio. They are multilingual services targeting immigrants who have recently arrived in Finland and therefore are not yet to able follow news in Finnish.

”In my opinion there should be more services specifically targeting immigrants. When people have just moved into the country it is very important to have current information about what happens in Finland”, says Ekaterina Shevtsova news anchor of Panorama’s Russian language service.

“We believe that immigrants coming to Finland should learn Finnish but since we also know that the Finnish language is not the easiest to learn, in the mean time they should be offered news in their mother tongue or in a language that they are more familiar with”, said Gustavo Marroquin, producer and director of Panorama.

He estimates that takes at least three years for a newly arrived immigrant to know a smattering of Finnish language to enable him or her follow news from the mainstream media which are entirely in Finnish.

Panorama began broadcasting last autumn and now reaches about 10 000 viewers among all sectors of the population. The station does not carry spot news as such but rather provides commentary on news and other current affairs that have bearing on the life situation of immigrants in Finland in four languages, Russian, French Spanish and Arabic with plans to include Somali language in the near future.

Monivisio also operates along similar lines on radio and on the internet in Farsi, Kurdish, Somali, Russian and Finnish.

NGo's work with EU funding

Panorama is a three-year project funded under the European Union’s immigrant integration programme, while Monivisio also received funding from the same programme but its activities are mainly funded by Kansan Radioliitto ry, a not-for profit broadcasting organisation.

According to the producers, the underling working principle is to portray immigrants as actors in society and not simply passive recipients as the mainstream media have often done. The programming format would be participatory with immigrants encouraged to produce their own programmes.

Many of the news anchors and pogramme hosts are volunteer non-professional journalists who receive on-the-job training on journalistic skills. Others are interns on job retraining schemes from the Employment Office. But they are all highly motivated because according to them, they are involved in creating a novelty.

“I am very happy with what I am doing in Panorama because I believe I am doing community work” says Ruth Rubin, one of the news anchors in Spanish, who says she was originally trained for the radio and therefore finds the new medium of television a little difficult and would need to adjust.

“It is very gratifying”, says Minna Tarkka, one of the producers of Panorama. “For a native Finn like me it gives a totally new bite and perspective to Finland”, she adds.

Minna Tarkka says she derives pleasure from “the enthusiasm and commitment in the group, and to understanding that this is really something new and important for the current Finnish society and culture”.

A test case for managing

multicultural differences

However, the significance of the broadcasting stations goes beyond merely keeping immigrants informed; they are a test case for managing multicultural differences. Somalis, Kurds, Russians, Iranians and Finns, some of them without previous contacts, become workmates under the same roof and have to negotiate on how to execute a common project. The working language is Finnish.

“For 25 years I have never been in contact with a Somali”, confesses Natalia Kantola, a Ukrainian and one of the journalists in Monivisio and a former engineer in Nokia.

Yet they manage exceptionally well because they are all enthusiastic in and deeply committed to the work they are doing. They have to learn to accept the vast cultural differences and respect each other’s perspective on different issues.

“There are at times conflicts but we are always able to resolve them because of our common desire in the project”, says Kantola.

Kantola is so impressed by the outcome of such an encounter in cementing cultural ties and bridging differences that she says there should be more of such workplaces in Finland. Unfortunately mainstream media houses are still homogenously staffed by native Finns.

A characteristic of such new initiatives is that they are bound to have teething problems, which inevitable is money. When Panorama’s three-year funding arrangements in ends in 2012, where to procure funding would be up in the air.

Monivisio received a year funding from the EU immigrants integration programme which has since ended but Chief Editor Seppo Julin does not find that problematic. In fact, on the contrary because the EU funds appear to have placed them in a straight jacked since they were obliged to produce programmes solely to promote immigrants’ integration.

But with no more funds from the EU that constraint has been removed. “Now we can do anything, cover demonstrations and produce whatever we like”, says Julin.

Nevertheless it remains uncertain whether there would be financing for the internet television far into the future because the core activity of Kansan Radio Liitto ry – which also owns Lähiradio is radio broadcasting and television is a side issue.

But Chief Editor Seppo Julin is undeterred, for he plans to introduce podcasting in addition to the current one or two programmes a week of internet broadcasting

“It is necessary for immigrants arriving here to quickly get familiar with issues in Finland such as taxes, the bureaucracy and changes in the city and where things are going”, says Rubin.

But she also cautions that even though it may be necessary to be critical at times, the programmes should not dwell on “painting every black or just providing a negative picture of everything in Finland”.