None of the media organisations in the sample were officially associated with a particular party or an ideology, but like almost all other leading news media, they subscribe to the ideals of independence, balance, and pluralism. Practically all interviewees recognised the importance of internal pluralism, but generally, they emphasised general journalistic culture over formal rules or procedures. As one interviewee put it, “the best way to ensure plurality is to have proficient reporters and good journalistic standards”.
Individual journalists tended to have a lot of responsibility and autonomy in Finnish newsrooms, although discussions between editors and the newsroom staff also took place to discuss appropriate weight given to different positions, especially when it came to political news.
The choice of expert sources was recognised as a significant issue by many interviewees. According to multiple interviewees, the fact that Finland is a small country often meant that the same handful of experts would be called upon to comment on a particular topic, despite attempts to find people who could provide different angles. Some media organisations also reported that analytics were deployed to keep track of the balance (for example gender) of sources interviewed:
There have been times when Yle has been criticised for often having the same expert on-screen. The argument is that if the expert is well known, it’s easier to trust. There have been statistics to follow up on the gender distribution of the experts, so the situation has improved [with more female experts included]. (Yle editor-in-chief, 2020)
One interviewee also raised a more general issue of whether journalism was collectively able to cover all layers of society, when journalists themselves are generally middle-class professionals living in the metropolitan area.
