In Finland young journalists are facing a whole bunch of new challenges now and in the future as well. Some of the challenges are among the ethical issues on journalism, the others are to do with the changes on the whole media branch. To be a journalist in Finland is something a bit different than being a journalist in bigger countries such as in the UK or in Germany. In the following I try to introduce some of the most critical issues about the Finnish journalism now .

First of all Finland is, as many Europeans know, a very small country. This means that being a journalist in a big news paper or broadcasting company gives one a greater power in the whole society as there aren't so many medias people really follow. This is a slight problem as the biggest medias nowadays have nearly a monopoly in the media branch. The smaller medias basically, at least too often, copy what the bigger do and this makes their monopoly situation even stronger. The biggest medias also hire the best journalists - at least they are supposed to - but some of these 'best' journalists are only very ambitious and haven't really got a strong interest about the society and media's role in that. The power of these journalists, us in the biggest media, becomes almost too big. People listen to them, to their news and believe them.
Then in our small society this monopoly situation is even worse as the elite in Finland is also very small. This basically means that many of the journalists that write about the big topics in politics and economy know all the elite members more or less personally. The problem is the same also in the smaller medias, maybe even bigger as they are more dependent on the local advertisements. This makes it harder for journalists to write objectively about things going on. The question is about the economical freedom of the medias: if a journalist ruins his or hers connections to the elite it might effect the financial situation of the media. A big company might take off their advertisements from the media if a journalist writes a story of them that they do not like.

The same way a politician might refuse to give anymore important interviews to a paper or radio- or tv-cahnnel if the journalists get into bad relations with the person.
The problems must be more or less the same in every country, but in Finland the problem seems really hard to solve. This kind of (we call it a good fellow -network which means that a journalist writes descent stories and the elite will help them out financially etc.) makes journalism obviously more corrupted, less objective, less respective and less reliable.
What it means to be a journalist in Finland is to ensure this kind of scenario wont get any stronger. This means the young future journalist must not follow and do the same as the former generation did. Of course not all of the journalists in Finland are elite's lap-dogs, some of them are real watch-dogs. But we need more enthustiastic journalists who are willing to take the risk to be brave enough not only to co-operate with the elite but also to bring into daylight the evil in the society. Even if it might disturb their career and be a nuisance on their way to becoming the chief editor. This way also the smaller medias would gain more readers and listeners if they were more objective and bolder to write about the unpleasant truth.

To help to make the Finnish journalists to understand their meaning in the society is a question about first of all education, then also about attitudes and the financing of the medias. Like the Finnish broadcasting company YLE is supposed to be very independent because it's not financed by ads, but still there are some problems. Because of the on-going debate about the financing of the public broadcasting company it might happen that in the future there might not be enough money to produce quality journalism that would be able to compete with the commercial medias. If YLE loses listeners and watchers, it gets less money and then making quality journalism becomes even harder again - this is kind of a circle. These kind of problems we have that exist from year to another. We need a qualified education for the future journalists, better than it is now. I personally am very interested in developing the academic journalistic education and some ideas have already been seriously discussed among the students. One issue is that the education should rely more on the knowledge about society instead of endless knowledge on the technique and practical skills on journalistic work. That we learn at the internships. To know more about how the society is built means that we as journalists are less subject to believe everything that business elite or politicians say.
Being a journalist in Finland is about being curios, responsible and especially being independent and able to think "with your own brain" as we say in Finnish.

I believe strongly that European co-operation is needed here. The questions are big and global and even though the challenges of media vary a little between the European countries the main trends are the same. More international European discussion about the challenges on media is needed as the power of media is getting stronger trough internet, mobile phones etc. We could learn much from each other and try to escalate the media as well in Finland as in other European countries towards more objective point of view.