When this event was being planned, it looked like March would be a quieter period than usual in the President's work programme. Things don't seem to have worked out quite that way.
However, the theme of this seminar makes it interesting, and that is what encouraged me to keep my promise to attend.
In fact, the theme prompts us to look at history. As a series of publications marking the 70th anniversary of the Finnish Broadcasting Company reminds us, Finnish broadcasting has always reflected the time in which it was done. In the beginning, that reflection was very selective and elitist, but gradually society was illuminated more and more broadly and it became possible to talk of radio and television serving all the people.
In Finland, as elsewhere, broadcasting was at first solidly anchored in the power structures of society, but as the decades went by the mirror on society that electronic media constituted became broader in its angle of coverage and brighter, just as public service broadcasting is supposed to do.
It is a joy to be here in honour of "Mirror of Today", the very name of which signifies its aim: to illuminate society and serve citizens as a versatile mediator of topical information. In fact, that is the basic idea of journalism: to mediate news of the important events of the day and background information into that collective space of citizens that is called publicity. Put simply, it amounts to serving a society of citizens.
Some political scientists have elevated media to the status of a new power in the state. Chancellor Kauko Sipponen has said that our discourse on constitutional reform needs a broader perspective. What is needed now is a better recognition of the status of new influential forces, especially mass media, special-interest organisations, new movements, and market forces.
I believe Chancellor Sipponen is also calling for questions of responsibility to be examined.
My concern is the position of citizens in the new kind of media society. Naturally, it is a good position if their voices have a bigger place in society. In this respect, it can be assumed that citizens' opportunities have improved with the broadening of the media field that recent years have seen.
However, it is also on the level of the individual that the influence of media in a problematic sense culminates. Institutions and companies seem to cope quite well when they pursue their interests through publicity, in the media. The individual is in the least-favourable position in this respect.
I am aware of cases where people feel they have been unjustly branded by publicity. In the cases of many, this crushes them completely. The question to be asked here is whether the media have understood their limits and responsibility in this respect.
In the last elections, half the electorate aged under thirty failed to exercise their right to vote. That is not an encouraging datum. The publicity created by media - including the image of politicians presented - may not be one likely to inspire young people to go to the pools. On the other hand, of course, the ball can be thrown back into the court of political players and the point made that the fault lies in politics, in its procedures, and indeed why not also in its goals.
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I am convinced that the Finnish media culture as such will do well in any international comparison. We have good newspapers and electronic media. But when we take into account the fact that our country's position in the international community is to an constantly growing degree measurable by what kind of democracy and information society we have, the national development of our media culture should in this respect be understood as an important new challenge.
Indeed, it could be imagined that Finland, as a country known for her sense of common responsibility, would set exceptionally high criteria for her media to meet, for example with respect to protection of the individual. We could point the way for others. That would mean our media emphasising the aspects of their work that relate to education and public service.
In my view, the media need defence from within.
Catch-phrases under the heading "criticism of the media" include my predecessor's characterisation of journalists as a herd of lemmings. Such arguments to the effect that the media tend to uniformity and to follow fashions have been supported by research results. Yet there is no justification in this day and age for putting journalists in the dock; instead, we should encourage the emergence of journalists who ponder their profession with a critical mind and reform it. Higher-level training and research in the field have helped create a new journalistic culture, in which criticism no longer provokes petulance and counter-accusations that freedom of speech is being restricted, but where there is instead a willingness to discuss things in a businesslike way and practice self-criticism.
A promising indication of this in Finland is a textbook entitled "The Lemming Chopper". Another that deserves mention is the ongoing "Media Monitoring" research project in South Africa, which has helped extinguish many hot spots of media criticism - including those that have arisen from reporting of the work of the Truth Commission now examining the country's past.
Media criticism developed by journalists and researchers working together deserves every support both from us public figures who are the focus of publicity and from the general public. Especially we political decision-makers would be well-advised to keep our itchy fingers separate from everyday media life. On the other hand, we have a right and a duty to react when factual errors appear in the media. We must take a very serious attitude to media finances and in general to the communications policy that guides the structure of media - and that includes the Finnish Broadcasting Company's position in the digital sector. In this respect we could perhaps learn from Sweden, which has a permanent committee studying media diversity.
In an interview in the newspaper Keskisuomalaisen just over a year ago, I put forward the idea of regional media councils and of Ombudsmen for specific types of media. Since many voices rejected my proposal as a violation of freedom of speech, let it be said now that, on the contrary, my intention was to both to support freedom of speech as a fundamental civic right and advocate media that are free from nannying on the part of the public authorities. The Council for Mass Media has replied to complaints from the public on its own and looked after the national state of media ethics more broadly as well
Those who are concerned for freedom of expression should remember that it is the citizen who is the "owner" of this freedom and that the framework in which it exists is our democratic society of citizens - not the media as such. But the media discharge their task best when they are free and independent of vested interests. At least the Finnish Broadcasting Company, having reached the age of seven decades, can be expected to demonstrate the kind of mature self-esteem that can afford to admit it is serving our society of citizens, but which does so in an independent manner.
I congratulate "Mirror of the Day" on its decades of work and wish it continuing success in its labour for the good of our society of citizens.