News about Finland for an inte

News about Finland for international audiences 1978-2002

YLE Radio Finland news combined
target area style and Finnish news values

Juhani Niinistö

“News from a Finnish point of view”. That was the underlying principle of the news operation of YLE Radio Finland. Known as "Northern Report" the daily newscast covered news about Finland and international items related to Finland in English 1978-2002. Versions in German (1985-), French (1987-) and Russian (1990-) were added as Radio Finland expanded.

During the preceding years from 1967 YLE had offered freelancer-driven English language newscasts about Finland (audible abroad only, not inside Finland) with no control of content and huge differences in coverage depending on who had done the newscast. A Foreign Ministry driven radio service from Finland had closed down in 1958. In that system, staffers worked on Ministry premises and had walked twice a day the short distance in downtown Helsinki to the studios of YLE, then at 15 Fabianinkatu.

Until the launch of YLE Radio Finland Northern Report (also known later as Compass North) Radio Sweden had been the only station covering Finland systematically for an international audience. Unlike Swedish domestic national radio, the Swedish international service (Utlandsprogrammet) often had little compassion or understanding for the international position of Finland in the cold war environment. YLE Radio Finland news had to tackle both the western talk about "finlandization" as well as the implicit connotations from Stockholm that the iron curtain was actually between Finland and Sweden.

For some ten years starting in the early eighties Northern Report covered also major news in other Nordic countries. This was done in an effort to improve the competitive edge of YLE Radio Finland news as an alternative to Radio Sweden in the target areas. See later about "the friendly competition" between YLE Radio Finland and its Swedish counterpart Radio Sweden.

Combating "finlandization" claims

A key part of the late 70s and early 80s YLE Radio Finland news agenda was the international position of Finland. We believed that western (and at times Nordic) allegations about Finland could be best countered with detailed information and consistent background. YLE Radio Finland often used the expression that Finland was a “ democracy in the western sense of the word”. Another effort concerned the nature of the 1948 treaty between Finland and the Soviet Union. YLE Radio Finland underlined the fact that the treaty did not constitute a military alliance (as it was restricted to Finnish territory, military co-operation would be subject to negotiations and not automatic, etc).

When service in German was launched in 1985 we had to tackle some German presumptions. Radio Finland reminded that Finland had not surrendered unconditionally at the end of the war. Newswriters recruited from Germany, and not experienced in Finland, translated almost automatically “end of hostilities” as Kapitulation (surrender). Those versions never got on the air, but in house discussions of history were required. That same mistake cropped up in actual German media as late as during the Ahtisaari presidency. A reference to "peace in 1944" by Ahtisaari in a speech in Berlin went on DPA as Kapitulation.

Editorial independence from YLE News (radio and tv)

The intention was to be "a Finnish original", and specifically not a reflection of British, German or American coverage of Finland. Thus, international wire service material originating from Helsinki was not routinely used, even though it would have been easy . The main sources were the Finnish News Agency as well as YLE Radio and TV News.

Radio Finland was editorially independent from other in-house YLE news operations. That is a difference from

The domestic news services of YLE had a fairly “social” agenda until the mid 80s at least. That meant a lot of coverage of social services and the labour market sector. Radio Finland did not adopt that news agenda as such. The lead stories on YLE Radio Finland were fairly consistently political and economic. Discussion of regional international affairs and security policy was often more detailed than in comparable domestic radio output. Had someone ordered us to adhere strictly to the YLE news content - without use of the STT wire and newspapers - it would not have been possible to create a service that international audiences interested in Finland considered to be meaningful and credible.

YLE had its official news criteria where, for example, the societal impact and intensity of stories were key criteria. In practise, the citeria meant that crime, for example, was covered very modestly. Radio Finland applied those theoretical criteria in writing news for international audiences.

Radio Finland used commentaries by YLE staffers (heard on the domestic services) either as inserts in a newsreel format or as a sentence or two imbedded in a news text, attributed to the person whose opinion was quoted. "YLE Radio News analyst Hannu Reime pointed out that.....xxx "

The fact that external service news were handled outside centralized YLE news services was an exception to the policies of the era.. Even the national domestic Swedish language unit was not allowed to maintain news of its own until the 1980s, but Swedish language news were produced centrally along with the Finnish news.

So why was the decentralization allowed for very that small unit handling external broadcasting? The exception made in external broadcasting could be attributed to several factors. During its earlier history foreign language radio from Finland had been directly under the Foreign Ministry (until 1958) and even though when the sector had been brought administratively into YLE when broadcasts in English resumed in 1967, key decision makers probably viewed it with some caution also because a modest Foreign Office grant was available until the early 70s. (The Foreign Office did not cancel it, but as YLE chose not to -or forgot - apply for it the grant disappeared from the state budget.) It was also common in YLE to see how matters were done in Sweden, and at Sveriges Radio Utlandsprogrammet (External Service) was a separate unit - with Foreign Office financing at the time when YLE was formulating the future in the late 60s.

The most likely reason for the separate status was that incorporating external service news within the Yle News would have meant work and trouble to at least mid-echelon managers in the centralized news.

A wide base of sources

Collecting the sources was the responsibility of Radio Finland. The practical production arrangements involved both taping news off the air and working on the basis of those tapes. As a computerised news editorial system was developed Radio Finland was admitted into the system and sources were easier to get, but the entity of a source newscast would still be on the tape only as all texts were not available. Odd enough, the relationship between Radio Finland and YLE Television news was somewhat easier than with the Radio News. TVU gave Radio Finland full access to their scripts in the early 80s, while YLE Radio News (RUT) only gave us their newsreader texts, and commentaries by radio news analysts had to be used off tape (listening and writing) until the end of the operation in 2002.

Radio Finland had no active news gathering of its own. Taken the scanty resources, such ventures would have been risky. This did not mean that analysts of our own could not be used commentators when practicable, usually on an issue we were covering in detail. But breaking news of a risky character would not be encouraged. I recall our Russian service had information about a doping case in an international sports event in Lahti. I did not authorize the use as verification of the item could not be done. And the Russian team had the professionality that they asked and did not go ahead with the item. It turned our later the information matched with what Yle broke the next day. There were some other cases over the years.

News manuals with detailed format instructions

From late 70s guidelines were written for "writing news in foreign languages at Radio Finland". The last edition appeared in 1999. Radio Finland had no special mandate for news and was not considered to be "public diplomacy".

The 24-hour news cycle

From the late 70s until 2000 the daily broadcast of Northern Report was produced for first airing at 9.30 pm Finnish time. The same tape ran then until the following afternoon for various target areas. There was a modest preparedness for doing updates, and they were done when something really important had happened. But on the whole, the news were written “against future listening”. That is, nothing was happening “now “or “an hour ago” (except in purely generic use), but “Wednesday evening” and the future tense was avoided. The technique of writing resembled that of a newspaper going to press in the evening. A disclaimer announcement was included at the end about the fact that the broadcast had been “edited for first broadcast a 21.30 Finnish time”. Reruns during the following day were beamed for areas outside Europe though. Availability in Europe ceased with the morning rerun at 9.30 am Finnish time.

The schedule matched the general Finnish "news clock", with deadlines in late evening hours. The scoops and analyses included in the YLE national TV news at 8.30 pm could be included. At times breaking news at 8.30 pm of course caused major havoc as the whole bulletin had to be rewritten.

Scripting and presentation separated in 1980

While the factual correctness and essential background were of key importance to the credibility of the service, the presentation and audience appeal were crucial as well. Broadcast talent comprising all the required capabilities (command of Finnish, journalistic knowledge, good presentation) was nearly impossible to find in Finland and those few able to meet the requirements could earn more money in an easier way on the commercial translation market. Thus, the solution was to separate presentation from scripting in the English production. Writers were no longer required to be able to present the bulletin, but they kept control of the contents. The presenters could not make changes in content.

The change was introduced in early 1980 - and was reflected instantly in the audience reactions. A SW listener poll published in a BBC specialized broadcast showed YLE Radio Finland as "improved news service" even though it was only the presentation really that had been upgraded.

The separation allowed Radio Finland to develop its "sound". We were able to sound "American". That sent also a tacit message that the station was in a totally different camp from those Eastern European stations that used mainly locals as on air talent. - The sound image of Radio Finland (in English) tried to be close to stations such as Swiss Radio International and Radio Nederland. Presentation staffers were fairly easy to find - as no command of Finnish was required - and the YLE salaries matched well the compensation level of the English teaching market in Finland - while not the overinflated translation market.

"News directly from Helsinki, and not via Stockholm"

Radio Sweden had a long tradition of covering the North for the world, and to media from other countries Stockholm had become a news base as early as during WW2. YLE had discontinued its newscasts in English and French in 1958 and since then only Radio Sweden had covered Finland in English for the world audience.

During the cold war era the Swedish external service editorial content showed at times little understanding of the position of Finland. The international service there compiled its own news, and was not under the domestic Ekoredaktionen. While journalist at the Ekot often had sympathy towards Finland, the Swedish external service journalists - mostly with British and American backgrounds - viewed Finland often from a Western perspective. At times the news from Stockholm in English indicated more or less that the “free world” ended on the western shores of the Baltic Sea. Later the situation changed greatly.

As Radio Sweden was marketing itself as the voice of Northern Europe. (“News about Sweden and its Nordic neighbours”), the competitive edge of Radio Finland required more or less same approach. From the early 80s major items concerning the other Nordic countries were included, and we even hired stringers in the other Nordic capitals. The Nordic news content at YLE Radio Finland expired gradually in the early 90s.

On SW, MW and later satellites

At the height of its distribution Northern Report was aired as many as eleven times during its daily lifespan. The first rerun was usually at 11.30 pm Finnish time, for Europe. During the morning hours broadcasts were intended for the Middle East and later Europe. The services for Australia went at 9.30 am, followed by East Asia at 11.30 am. The local afternoon hours were morning in North America. For many years Northen Report was sent four times during the afternoon, starting at 2 pm. That made the broadcast available on the hour in EST, CST, MST and PST. That structure was dismantled in 1995 when YLE cut back the use of shortwave following the introduction of satellite distribution for North America.

International re-use and placement

The main international "impact" of YLE Radio Finland news was use without credits. This was most common in German - as the correspondents or stringers of the German media listened in Stockholm and used the items as a source with some modifications. This applied also to sent correspondents placed in Helsinki who were challenged with Finnish or Swedish.

YLE in English had only one major placement broadcast. That was the use of YLE Radio Finland in the CBC Overnight. YLE was part of the CBC Overnight from its start until the closing of the English service at the end of October 2002. Even though the broadcast time was at times unsocial, people of Finnish extraction in Canada had found the broadcast and it came up in conversations with people in Canada years after YLE had closed the availability in 2002. Towards the end of the seven years of Radio Finland relays on CBC the broacast time was 5 am. The broadcasts were adjusted so that all times zones got it at the same time (Newfoundland always a half hour later, as Candians know).

Radio Finland news in German meanwhile aired in Germany for years on the commercial channel RadioRopa. YLE Radio Finland in Russian had some placement during the 90s on commercial stations in Russia and Estonia.

YLE Radio Finland placement arrangements became possible in 1993 when Radio Finland entered co-operation with Deutsche Welle in satellite distribution. Our signal "reached the world" with new clarity and volume via Britz, Berlin. First to Europe and from 1995 to Asia and Australia (via AsiaSat, HKG). Arrangements for North America were done with the London based World Radio Network. The satellite distribution in co-operation with Deutsche Welle was originally intended for distribution in Russia, but as possibilities elsewhere opened in the process distribution in Russia (in Russian) soon had a smaller role.

News specials

Radio Finland arranged some large scale coverage specials starting with the 1975 Helsinki Summit of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe. The 1975 operation was modest in its scale and was restricted to some live feeds from the Finlandia Hall. It was my first contact with YLE External Broadcasting - I was on loan to help in it from YLE News. The production was managed by Donald Fields, a freelancer in Radio Finland from 1967 until the early 80s. See a separate recollection of the 1975 coverage. Fields was a freelancer and viewed many matters from the British angle. Olli Kivinen, a journalist at the Helsingin Sanomat had a role in explaining the Finnish angle to Fields in a way he would trust. Recollections of the 1975 project here.

When the 10^th anniversary of the conference was observed in 1985 Radio Finland aired continuously from Finland hall for the whole day. The difference from 1975 was that Radio Finland had now access to an FM channel in Helsinki, and the news specials could be heard locally. The 1985 coverage was the first special anchored by Eddy Hawkins of the English staff. He and professor Raimo Väyrynen appeared then in many specials for the next ten years. The visit to Finland by president Reagan in 1988 was covered in long special segments. For the Helsinki Summit of 1990 a special FM channel in English was opened, with continuous broadcast for three days. The format was reactivated for the 1992 CSCE conference in Helsinki. Also the Clinton-Jeltsin Summit was aired though no longer in that scope. Live coverage of Finnish election returns in English were arranged until presidential elections of 2000.

Change of profile in 2000 and decline of international availability

In 2000 the focus of the English service changed. Higher echelon controllers at YLE defined domestic availability via the newly started DAB network as the prime task. The main bulletin was shifted to local morning, at 7.30. And as that broadcast could not feasibly be rerun in the local evening, the daily running time of the English half hour was restricted to hours between 7.30 and 5 pm. That meant a decline of our service level in Europe. The decades-old evening broadcast simply was not there any longer. The other languages - secondary users of the English service - switched to comparable morning broadcast times.

The change hit hard the service level of English particularly in Europe while broadcasts to Asia, Australia and North America contiued as they had been. The exception was that the half hour on the CBC was now essentially older. The reach of German in continental Europe did not suffer that much as they had extensive local relays - via RadioRopa and also the German service of the World Radio Network that could delay the usage.

I realized the interests of serving audiences abroad in foreign languages had declined abruptly amongst the top brass of YLE. But a total closing (to come only two years later) was still an almost impossible vision.

The availability on the internet did offset the decline a bit, but there were many complaints from people who had been used to hearing Radio Finland in English as a radio service.

YLE Radio Finland had been the first channel of YLE to start audio availability on the internet as early as 1996. Servers in the UK and the US were used. Foreign language newscasts were available as audio files as well as a direct broadcast at the time of the actual transmission. Availability of text was added later when a direct internet connection from our officies was possible.

International English, German and French close down

In the spring of 2002 YLE corporate management prepared a strategy paper for international radio. Among the alternatives in the strategy there was the view that broadcasting in foreign languages for audiences abroad, including news, was not the tasks of the company.

It has to be underlined that after the early 70s international radio had no operational governmental subsidy in Finland, it was all financed on the basis of television licence fees collected in Finland. So there was no one in the government with any authority to intervene in the decisions by Yle.

The decision making to close down the foreign language service progressed quickly during the summer of 2002 and parliamentary controllers of YLE (in Finnish hallintoneuvosto, in Swedish förvaltningsrådet) confirmed the choice of closing Radio Finland foreign language services (except Russian) in August.. Talks (mandated by law) with the unions about the practical arrangements had been conducted over the summer months in anticipation of the final decision. The broadcasts ended with the summer broadcast season of 2002, on the last Sunday in October. The decision closed services in English, German and French. Broadcasts in Russian continued.

I made the last announcement myself - and the national anthem was heard. The anthem was usually not played at the end of foreign language broadcasts, but this situation deserved it, I thought. The last half hour included a mid 70s feature by Diana Tullberg about summertime in Finland.

While there were others offering some news in English about Finland, there were no consistent operations in German and French now that Yle had stopped. The most volumonous feedback in the wake of the closing came from listeners in the German language area - and from the Canadian audience of the daily relays heard on CBC. In Canada, the slot that had occupied YLE Radio Finland was now airing the Voice of Russia. This (unintendedly presumably) both amused and outraged people of Finnish extraction in Canada (taken the Finno-Soviet history).

There was no major domestic reaction to closing the language services. When the Foreign Ministry had closed in 1958 the radio critic of the newspaper Uusi Suomi had taken the matter up. The Foreign Ministry responded in a letter that in no uncertain terms reiterated the decision - and defended it. The Ministry did not believe -the way back in 1958 - in the value of broadcasting to foreign audiences - bypassing the national broadcasting systems of the target areas. It should be noted that in 1957 and 1958 several international stations had cancelled external programming. The BBC had cut off Scandinavian languages - but had kept Finnish. CBC in Canada had cancelled its Finnish broadcast on short wave to Finland. VOA had done the same some years earlier.

In 2002 the YLE decision was hasty - and the cancellation of German was particularly deplorable - as no one continued the tradition. Part of the audience reverted to Radio Schweden - with some coverage of Finland left. Incidentally, Radio Schweden continued then until 2016 in German, albeit undergoing several cutbacks in volume.

Domestic availability

YLE News had produced seasonal bulletins in English from 1965 and from 1980 the bulletins (then under YLE Radio Finland) were produced all year round. Also domestic availability of YLE Radio Finland news (on FM) began in Helsinki in 1978.

YLE Television News (called for some years also YLE 24) had launched news in English as a morning television service in 1999. That unit took over the production of domestic radio news in English in 2002. With the closing of Radio Finland the production of news in English for primarily foreign audiences outside Finland was terminated. Domestic radio news in English continued as a YLE 24 production - later known as YLE News.

The YLE Radio Finland English half hour on a number of YLE FM frequencies in southern Finland shrunk to a five minute bulletin, produced by YLE 24. Some former news professionals heard on Radio Finland continued employment at YLE 24. (The unit name YLE24 has been phased out since, news in English is part of YLE News.)

Pre-1970s news journalism for external audiences

From World War Two until 1958 YLE aired “press bulletins” produced by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. They were news transmissions usually based on the day's newspapers. That was a Foreign Ministry production and YLE provided the technical facilities only. Staffers of the Foreigy Ministry Radio Department walked (or took a cab) from their offices at Hallituskatu to YLE in Fabianinkatu. The Ministry closed the service in 1958. The Head of the Radio Department was Arvid Enckell.

In the 80s I interviewed John Milton, who had been a member of the Foreign Office radio team. He described the service as "done correctly, but with no enthusiasm". The version in French was the basic product - and English was written on the basis of it. When French resumed as a YLE product in 1987, it was a translation from English.

The service had no audience feed back broadcasts, even though Yle Information Unit at Fabianinkatu responded to letters. One casual mistake revealed though that at least Finnish embassies abroad were listening. A temporary newscaster - with little command of Finnish - had said the name of the then Under Secretary of State at the Ministry as Paskalahti, instead of the correct Pakaslahti. The Foreign Ministry broadcast could not be heard in Finland - and not even in the offices of the Ministry - so it was not until reactions from abroad arrived that the mistake could was noticed. The broadcasts were live but taped for reruns.

In 1965 YLE Radio News launched “tourist news” in English airing during the summer time. YLE Radio Finland took responsibility over that production in 1978. The broadcasts became a year-round service in 1980.

In 1967 the Ministry suggested that YLE would resume external broadcasting in English. English newscasts for Radio Finland began gradually in the early 70s, first as a bi-weekly roundup.

"News by individuals" - initial years after 1967 without any hands-on control - but feature and entertainment side was flourishing

During the first ten years from the resumption of foreign language broadcasting in 1967 external service news (then in English only) were produced by a group of freelancers with variable backgrounds. There was no hands-on control of the contents, before or after the broadcast, and the freelancers chose the sources on their own. Some took a look at what Yle had done, some used items from the morning newspapers. The connection to what actually had been making news in Finland was at times poor - at times fully professional. That was really a news service by individuals - with work done often alone. The best product of those years by far were the bulletins by Colin Narbrough, the Reuters correspondent in Helsinki who did Radio Finland bulletins as a freelancer.

Anything was possible - but luckily very few people knew about it as the service not audible within Finland. No one in domestic news was willing to take the trouble - or wreck their careers - in bringing the sector into the News unit. There was some fear - said even aloud - that some freelancers possibly had connections with intelligence systems.

Finally, it must be underlined that off news productions during 1967-1978 had no quality issues comparable to the news service. For example, the series of dramatized liteture by Diana Tullberg started in the early 70s. There were also in depth series on societal issues such as several parts in a documentary on criminal policy, which cropped up in audience reponse years later with a mention to the "apparently large prison population" in Finland. High quality entertainment we launched by Neil Hardwick and Tim Steffa. Their series "Land of a Thousand..." became iconic on US public stations that used them. Some listeners did write compaints saying that the series "border on impropriety". The early Radio Finland series were seen later as a start for the writers' career in creative writing for entertainment. Those production of those series had been closed before my arrival in Radio Finland. - The Hardwich - Steffa productions were a good match against Radio Sweden's Saturday Show's short versions. The longer medium wave version, of course, had no match from Finland.