All respondents considered journalism training to be increasingly important, but resources allocated to and practices of it seemed to vary across media organisations. As in 2011, the problem in most newsrooms is that individual journalists did not have the opportunities or time to leave their daily duties to take part in training.
Recent research reaffirms the contention among journalists that possibilities for professional training should be improved. UJF and The Federation of the Finnish Media Industry have an agreement that promotes advanced professional training. The unions agreed that education should be diverse, attended regularly, and that part of it should consist of training outside the journalist’s own workplace. There is also a chapter on the education programmes included in the collective labour agreement (Federation of Finnish Media Industry & Journalists Union, 2020).
In many instances, journalists can take paid leave to further their education, and in the selected media organisations, various forms of training are in use. The largest media organisations, like Yle and HS, have their own internal resources for professional training, but most news organisations also use outside consultants or experts for internal training. Much of regular professional training focuses on technical skills, creative writing, and other professional skills. For more extensive knowledge training, media organisations tended to rely on universities and other places of journalistic higher education. Opinions differed on the recent developments.
