Here’s an important question to the Finnish media: Why is it more interested to report on an event organized by far-right anti-immigration groups (see picture below) that are a flop but doesn’t care to report on demonstrations that took place Monday in Helsinki, Jämsä, Jyväskylä, Kemi, Kolari and elsewhere that attract a lot more people? Today’s “A right to live” demonstrations attracted in Helsinki alone up to 500 people.
The demonstrations organized today were against a new government assessment that alleges that Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia are safe countries to return asylum seekers.
June 20 was World Refugee Day.
Why was most of the Finnish media silent and didn’t care about covering the demonstrations today? Does it show that most of the Finnish media is biased when reporting about asylum seekers?
The only media that wrote about today’s demonstrations were Karjalainen and YLE in Joensuu. a city located in Eastern Finland.
Turun Sanomat and Demokraatti wrote about the demonstrations as well.
The fact that not even Helsingin Sanomat cared to cover the event(s) raises some disturbing questions about the daily and the Finnish media in general. How impartial is it and does it side with the government on its tough stand on immigration?
A far-right event in Jyväskylä, located in Central Finland, attracted hardly any people on Saturday. It got covered in the media. Read more about this flop on Saku Timonen’s blog.
Or what about this one below on Monday where only a tiny handful showed up to demonstrate against an asylum reception center in Heinola, located about 130km north of Helsinki? It got noticed by Etelä-Suomen Sanomat, a Lahti-based daily.
Read full story (in Finnish) here.
But then the demonstration in Helsinki that filled the Narikkatori square was ignored by the Helsingin Sanomat and the Finnish media.