News media’s and journalists’ allegiance to the Guidelines for Journalists was strongly underlined in almost all interviews. In the Guidelines, the watchdog function is emphasised: “a journalist is primarily responsible to the readers, listeners and viewers, who have the right to know what is happening in society” (CMM, 2014) (see also Indicator F4 – Internal rules for practice of newsroom democracy). This was evidenced in a recent study on the basic professional values of Finnish journalists. Here, it was found that the “role of an impartial watchdog” was clearly emphasised in their professional profile (Pöyhtäri et al., 2016: 12). Additionally, most news media outlets have a mission statement or in-house rules of some kind – both typically making references to the freedom of speech, political independence, pluralism, and other democratic values (see also Indicators F7 – Procedures on news selection and news processing & E8 – Level of self-regulation).
Although most of the interviewed editors-in-chief acknowledged that mission statements have little practical meaning, the watchdog function remains strongly entrenched in the dominant professional ideology. However, when asked about investigative journalism, only the biggest news media houses could confirm that they had regular activities and investments in this area of work (HS, Yle); other respondents either stated that their mission does not include investigative journalism (MTV3, Iltalehti) or that although they recognised its importance, they did not have the necessary resources to conduct it regularly:
There aren’t many resources available for investigative journalism. The tempo is high and the news is produced very quickly, which means there is a limited time resource to use for investigative journalism […] Investigative reporting is mainly used when there are crimes that need to be covered. If and when there is an option to do investigative reporting it helps if the reporter shows initiative. But often it is not possible [practically] to do investigative journalism. (MTV3 reporter, 2020)
