Ombudsman for Children wants tabloid newsstand fliers away from shop check-out counters

Maria Kaisa Aula

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The Ombudsman for Children in Finland Maria Kaisa Aula does not want the tabloid newsstand fliers to decorate the check-out counters of shops. The idea of the flier-free counters originates from parents, who have contacted the ombudsman's office.
      According to Aula, worried parents frequently contact her office on the matter.
     
In an interview given to the Christian weekly newspaper Kotimaa, Aula calls for the parents' right to choose a flier-free queue, without messages that may distress their children.
      "The fliers needn't be everywhere at children's eye level. Civic organisations working with families could raise the issue with local shops and supermarkets and call for some social responsibility", Aula suggests.
      In the ombudsman's office there are no plans to draw up directions for shops or kiosks on where and how to display the newsstand fliers.
     
Director Anja Peltonen of the Finnish Consumer Agency supports the idea of establishing flier-free check-out counters.
      "This would prevent children from staring at the fliers for long periods of time while standing in a queue. Another problem to be addressed is the way kiosks display their tabloid fliers."
      Finland has two late-edition tabloids, Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti. Whilst they compete - sometimes extremely vigorously - for the eye of the newsstand buyers, the country has not hitherto had a reputation for extreme gutter-journalism. There have, however, been a number of complaints more recently at stories run by the tabloids, either with graphic pictures or questionable celebrity subjects.


Links:
  Ombudsman for Children in Finland
  Consumer Agency and Ombudsman

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