Despite top rankings in the World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, ever since it was established in 2002, external interference of journalists is by no means a new phenomenon in Finland. However, online harassment and intimidation of journalists covering the aftermath of the so-called refugee crisis and immigration became a public concern in 2016, after several cases had been reported in the media. One exceptional case was the knife assault on Turku Market Square in March 2018, as described by the editor-in-chief of Turun Sanomat:
Moderation is necessary [online]. A few years ago when the Turku knife assault happened, it was a huge effort as there were 500–1000 daily posts that needed to be handled. Two people did it on the side of their main task. For the past two years, the commentators have been bound to first register themselves. That helped the situation. Now, the amount of comments can be handled well […] After the knife attack, there were 200 hate mails in one month, mostly from the “racists” but also from the “suvakit” [anti-racists]. If our reporter is harassed, he does not hesitate to mention it. But there is a serious risk for self-censorship, where a reporter does not have the strength to write a story because of the expected shit-storm that will follow. (TS editor-in-chief, 2020)
Later in the same year, there was also a very exceptional conflict between the prime minister of Finland and public broadcaster Yle (see Indicators F5 & F6– Company rules against internal and external influence on newsroom/editorial staff) (Hiltunen, 2018).
A study conducted in 2017 revealed that although severe interference was rare, low-level external interference of journalists was more common than expected. For example, 60 per cent of respondents had experienced verbal abuse in their work, and 15 per cent faced it regularly (Hiltunen, 2018). According to the editors-in-chief of a leading news media organisation, both male and female journalists have been targeted online; however, female reporters have been harassed more often and more seriously.
By now, the largest news media houses in Finland have created their own internal protocols and guidelines for protecting their journalists against external interference and harassment. All of them are also ready to take legal action and transfer the most serious cases to the police. Small and local media do not necessarily have their own guidelines yet, but they can utilise the public version of Yle guidelines for safer interaction released in early 2020 (Harvia & Naskali, 2020).
At the moment, online shaming, harassment, or illegal threats are not crimes as such, but the Finnish government is going to change the situation by reforming the existing legislation. This would provide better protection not only for the police, prosecutors, and judges, but also nurses, paramedics, and professional journalists (see Indicator C2 – Independence of the news media from powerholders).
Besides company-specific policies and practices for protecting permanently employed journalists from harassment, a special Support Fund of Journalistswas established in 2019 to help Finnish freelancers, in particular. During its first year of operation, the fund altogether disbursed EUR 41,000 as four support grants covering, for example, loss of income, moving expenses, and crisis therapy (Jokes, 2020).
