She has just recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over its Sahara: Finland ranks third in the world in terms of the number of newspaper readers per capita. Good for Morocco

HIBAPRESS-RABAT

Finland ranks third in the world in terms of newspaper readers per capita. The print media market is highly diverse for a country of just 7.5 million people: over 200 national or regional newspapers are published at least weekly. Most households subscribe to a daily newspaper and several magazines, while also receiving many free newspapers and magazines.

Like their colleagues abroad, Finnish journalists have recently been increasingly targeted by hate speech on the Internet. Ilkka Nousiainen and Elina Grundström deplore this development, but hope that it will not make them too cautious when writing about highly controversial topics, such as immigration, the refugee crisis, feminism, food issues, hunting or gun regulations. However, they both feel that the Finnish media has stopped censoring itself on all political topics since the Cold War, when journalists in Finland were used to being careful not to criticise the Soviet Union.

According to Grundström, the current downsizing of the country’s print media groups, radio stations and television channels poses a more serious threat to the diversity and quality of Finnish media. “Finns take freedom of the press for granted, but they don’t realise that this freedom is the result of efforts that journalists have made over many years. It is worrying to see the fate of freedom of the press in some Eastern European countries or other parts of the world,” she says.