Kari Koljonen

CRISIS JOURNALISM AT A CROSSROADS

The ongoing changes in journalism in Finland have forced the profession to consider its position and practices. This need for reflection was particularly clear after the recent school shooting cases in Jokela in 2007 and in Kauhajoki in 2008 that gave rise to a public debate about journalists’ actions. Using qualitative content analysis and the idea of reflective practice as its methods, this study investigates how 45 Finnish journalists reflected on their and their professions work after the two cases. The study focuses on journalists’ views of reporting on the shooters and victims, and reveals a shift in journalists’ thinking from a strong deontological ethos towards a more teleological stance. It also highlights the need for further research to determine whether the change observed is a permanent one.

Liquid Modern Journalism with a Difference: The changing professional ethos of cultural journalism

Reflecting a change from high to liquid modern culture, journalism is said to be encountering a transformation from high towards liquid modernity. Cultural journalism, however, has been found to be “journalism with a difference”. Due to this distinctive character, the principles of general journalism do not directly apply to cultural journalism. Consequently, the manifestations and consequences of the high and liquid modern ethos appear differently in cultural journalism. Proposing a theoretical framework of the core aspects of journalism—(1) knowledge, (2) audience, (3) power, (4) time, and (5) ethics—this article argues that cultural journalists differ from other journalists in their responses to the recent transformations in the professional values, working practices and the status of journalists.

Vital Explanations or Harmful Gossip? Finnish Journalists’ Reflections on Reporting the Interpretations of Two School Shootings

Purpose – This study looks at the explanations given in Finnish media for the two school shootings that took place in the country in 2007 and 2008. It also investigates how Finnish journalists reflected on the explanations and the problems they posed to journalists’ professional values. Design/methodology/approach – The study gives an overview of the most common explanations for the two incidents in the media through a textual analysis. A qualitative reading of interviews with journalists after the two school shootings sheds more light on journalists’ reflections on the explanations given. The findings are considered against the concept of professional values of journalism in Finland. Findings – The media coverage of explanations varied markedly between the two school shootings. After the first rampage, explanations centered on the shooter and portrayed the incident as an “isolated case,” whereas after the second rampage journalists focused on societal problems and authorities’ wrongdoings in their explanations. The change can be attributed to the different nature of the two incidents, plus journalists’ increased need to pay attention to audience feedback in the rapidly changing media landscape. The altered ways of reporting also indicated a partial rethink of the professional values among journalists. With the school shootings, Finnish journalists’ traditionally strong support for deontological ethics as the cornerstone of disaster reporting declined slightly, with teleological ethics gaining prominence. Originality – The study provides new insights into recent changes and developments of disaster reporting and journalists’ professional values in Finland.

Not Partisans, But Participants

There is ample research confirming that journalistic interventionism in political reporting has increased and that journalism has become more interpretive during the past few decades. Drawing from semi-structured interviews (N = 30) and a survey (N = 330), this article presents a concrete and practice-oriented view of journalistic interventionism in the professional ethos of Finnish journalists working in mainstream newsrooms. Theoretically, it suggests a distinction between the quantity (degree) and quality (nature) of journalistic interventionism, which will help empirical research to be more open to different kinds of interventionist practices and journalists’ own ways of incorporating them into their professional ethos. By analyzing journalists’ self-reported descriptions of how journalistic interventionism occurs in their actual work practices, this article describes how Finnish journalists negotiate their professional ethos as financial pressures, heightened competition, and assertive forms of public life seem to be questioning objectivity and nonpartisan neutrality.