Janne Virkkunen - a career of advancing serious journalism

Helsingin Sanomat editor-in-chief retires this year

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By Teemu Luukka
     
      A familiar grey-haired gentleman in jeans has been seen walking the corridors of Helsingin Sanomat in recent weeks. His mood has been considerably more relaxed than usual. It is as if he had just come back from a long cross-country ski outing.
      The man is Janne Virkkunen, the editor-in-chief of Helsingin Sanomat, whose 19 years as the main decision-maker at the largest newspaper in the Nordic region is coming to an end on Wednesday.
      This means that on Friday, he will be reading an issue of Helsingin Sanomat whose content will be the sole responsibility of Mikael Pentikäinen, who starts as the newspaper’s editor-in-chief on April 1st.
      “The reading experience will certainly be more exciting, since I will hot have been at the office the previous day producing the issue. And I will not have had to get up at 6:30 in the morning to systematically read through the whole paper”, says Virkkunen as he rises to turn off the mobile phone that is constantly ringing on his desk.
     
In the corner of his office, a few boxes filled with his things are waiting for someone to carry them out.
      Virkkunen will leave Sanoma House next week to work on company projects. He will not become a pensioner until the end of the year.
     
He has already taken a couple of framed pictures off his wall. One of them is a front page of Päivälehti, the predecessor of Helsingin Sanomat, from 1889.
      Virkkunen says that he is leaving Helsingin Sanomat with a satisfied mind, even though the newspaper’s circulation has declined for some time at an annual rate of around one per cent.
      Young people have learned that they can get their news for free on the Internet, and the economic crisis has reduced the paper’s advertising revenue.
      “I am proud of this newspaper. The paper is strong in content and economically healthy at a time when the world is full of bad news about the business.”
     
Another reason for relative satisfaction is that newspapers in Finland are doing better than those in practically any other Western country, and that Helsingin Sanomat, with its one million readers, is one of the world’s largest dailies, in proportion to the population of the country in which it appears.
      Janne Virkkunen expects printed newspapers to remain in Finland for a long time.
      “There are three reasons for this: Finland has a strong tradition of reading, we have an early delivery system, and the quality of Finnish newspapers is mostly quite good.”
     
Now 62, Janne Virkkunen first came to Helsingin Sanomat in the early 1970s from the journalists’ school of the Sanoma Corporation.
      In 1981 he was one of the writers of the best-selling and slightly scandalous little book Tamminiemen pesänjakajat (“The Heirs of Tamminiemi” - a volume speculating on the possible successors to President Urho Kekkonen).
      The book didn't take any prisoners, and it shook up Finnish journalism, and also led to the sacking of Aarno Laitinen, the head of the political desk of Helsingin Sanomat at the time.
      Laitinen had to go, because the journalists from the political desk wrote the book without first clearing the project with their employer.
      Laitinen's deputy Janne Virkkunen kept his post.
      “Perhaps it was enough for the company for one person to be shown the door”, Virkkunen says, smiling - but it is not a very broad smile.
     
Virkkunen ended up being a journalist because he was interested in social issues and because writing came easily to him.
      Perhaps the heritage of a cultural family had something to do with it. Virkkunen is a great-grandson of composer Jean Sibelius.
      Virkkunen refers to himself as an “issues-oriented” editor.
     
He still manages to speak passionately about his favourite subject - that of the virtues of traditional journalism.
      It is almost as if he were afraid that journalists of the internet age might not really take them to heart.
      “Virtues include balanced reporting, the reliability of the information, a passion for producing quality... sympathy, humility, a lack of respect for authority... fairness, and a serious commitment to serious matters. One needs to be passionate about explaining, and to have a desire to make the world a better place for people to live.”
      “Societal relevance still needs to define priorities at Helsingin Sanomat. There must be no hidden agendas. Things need to be advanced, but this must be done openly.”
     
A hard-boiled Helsinki resident, Virkkunen likes nothing better than to talk about “serious journalism”.
      He is annoyed by “Big Brother journalism”, and the rough treatment given to celebrities, such as only semi-mature athletes.
      Virkkunen is disgusted by writing that wallows in the misery of some celebrity or another.
      “It is dangerous if journalists start doing too many things that are really of no great significance. It is dangerous if we think that our work has no importance, because this work, if any, really does have societal significance. One needs to be capable of selecting what to focus on, and to do those things well. It is extremely important for journalists to be genuinely proud of what they do. If it is not a joy to come to work in the morning, the quality of the work begins to suffer.”
      And naturally journalists need to keep those in power under scrutiny.
      “Power is where there is silence”, he says.
     
Virkkunen has strong faith in a daily information package such as a newspaper, no matter what form that package takes. “The power of a newspaper is emphasised in the kind of information chaos that we have today, in which people receive a massive amount of information. At best, a newspaper can rationalise the chaos both on paper and on the Net.”
      Virkkunen is afraid that we might be living in an age once more where blind spots emerge only after some years.
      For that reason, journalists need to seek out disparate questions, and those that are just in a bud - matters that will be self-evident to everyone five years from now, but which now are still invisible.
     
“I have pondered whether or not we have a blind faith in the overwhelming power of the markets, or on the blessings of globalisation. And do we see the current internal structural change in Finland with its inequalities in the right way? I cannot say for sure.”
      For this reason, Virkkunen says that dissidents of all fields should be listened to more.
      “A small minority can see farther than a great majority.”
      “But Helsingin Sanomat also does not give enough space to dissidents. In this respect, we are, perhaps excessively a newspaper of the mainstream.”
     
And yes, he has other criticisms of Helsingin Sanomat, and in Finnish journalism in general.
      For instance, the journalists make far too many mistakes and write too many warm & fuzzy opinion pieces.
      Virkkunen says that it is a danger to journalism for journalists to try to remedy the ills of the world through facile analyses, rather than through balanced and fact-based reporting.
      He yearns for analysis, deep information, and news that those in power might wish they did not have to read.
      “I think that a good guideline is that a journalist must keep a cool head, no matter how feverishly the heart might be beating.”
     
Virkkunen does not know what the first thing that he will do when he retires will be.
      He has not even decided on writing any memoirs.
      “First I will sleep off this fatigue”, he says, and his mobile phone rings again.
      “I have lived a good life. At least I can say that I tried to affect the development of society.”
      “I think that our role has been genuinely significant, as Finland became integrated into the EU. I also hope that we have been able to promote a socially more just society”, Virkkunen says, listing the projects that he has been able to influence during his period as editor-in-chief.
      But notice that he talks more about “we” than “I”.
      That “we” is Helsingin Sanomat.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 28.3.2010


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Mikael Pentikäinen appointed as Helsingin Sanomat editor-in-chief from April 2010 (12.2..2010)
  Newsman gets dream job (12.2..2010)
  Editors-in-chief of Päivälehti and Helsingin Sanomat (12.2..2010)

TEEMU LUUKKA / Helsingin Sanomat
teemu.luukka@hs.fi