COMMENTARY: On the house

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By Petteri Tuohinen
     
      At the breakfasts offered by Members of the European Parliament, journalists sometimes have difficulty finding a seat.
      There is always a crowd when the European Parliament has flown in a group of reporters from Helsinki to familiarise themselves with a plenary week in Strasbourg.
      Earlier this week, the matter of trips for journalists paid for partially or completely by the EU stirred discussion, after the International Herald Tribune drew attention to the issue.
     
Within the EU, the subject of subsidised trips is not seen as a problem.
      For example in the Commission and in the European Parliament it was considered natural that they should want publicity, even if it is to be had by paying journalists for their flights and per diem expenses.
      However, the paid trips are not problem-free.
      In an extreme example, a Europarliamentarian could pay for a Finnish journalist's trip to Brussels, in order that the reporter might write a positive character-piece on the MEP. The journalist's credibility would be shot, and a change of profession would be in prospect.
      Neither is it unproblematic that the EU itself does not see the matter as a dilemma. The European Parliament and the European Commission repeatedly declare how they are trying to increase transparency within the Union.
      Aidan White, the Secretary-General of the International Federation of Journalists, has actually demanded that the Union comes clean publicly, naming the names of those whose trips it has funded.
     
The proposal sounds sensible. Journalists themselves criticise politicians and civil servants for their lack of openness and for keeping back information, so it would be only fair and reasonable that the public might, if they wish, know about what the journalists are up to. The public has a right to know.
      On the other hand, it does not do to throw common sense to the winds on the subject of taking part in such trips. If, for instance, the European Parliament were not to invite journalists from member-states on fact-finding visits to Strasbourg, then some small media outlets might not make the trip at all.
      And there are other reasons for cautioning common sense. Even if a reporter writing about Strasbourg has taken part in a trip sponsored by the European Parliament, any journalist with a shred of professional ethics would not think even for a minute that he should take this fact into account in his reporting. If it is a question of something less than favourable about some MEP, for example, it will get written if there is cause to write it.
     
Among the Brussels press corps, paid freebie trips have become familiar for instance when an incoming EU Presidency country invites around 60 journalists "back home" to meet the country's leading politicians.
      On these trips, few pay their own way. It is nevertheless hard to believe that any of those who are taking part in the jaunt would actually write something nice about the holder of the Presidency simply because of an expenses-paid trip. But it is good for us to know that such things happen, all the same.
      The next time the public can watch the freebie process in action will be at the beginning of July, when they will see what sort of publicity Finland can generate by paying to bring a herd of several dozen journalists to Helsinki.
      The best way to get positive publicity is to do something good that is worth writing about.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 8.4.2006


Links:
  International Herald Tribune: Article, April 5, 2006
  International Herald Tribune: Article, April 6, 2006

PETTERI TUOHINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
petteri.tuohinen@hs.fi