Helsingin Sanomat, 120, gets a facelift

The largest newspaper in the Nordic region has always had its detractors

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Monday November 16th is a milestone in the history of Helsingin Sanomat, the largest newspaper by circulation in the Nordic region, and it is also a moment when the present staff turn a new page.
      It was on this day 120 years ago that Helsingin Sanomat's immediate predecessor Päivälehti first made its appearance in 1889, and today has also been chosen for the launch of a new look for the daily newspaper.
     
The most obvious changes for the readers of the print paper will come in the shape of a new font for headlines and body texts, as those behind the venture have sought above all to improve clarity and readability.
      The familiar sections of the paper - Domestic News and Metro in A, Foreign News, Business, and Sport in B, Culture in C, and so on, including special sections on different days of the week - will remain, but there will be a few moments when a reader wonders where something is: the weather page, for instance, has moved from its former spot at the back of section A to a more prominent position on A4, immediately after the editorials and main headlines.
      One thing remains steadfastly unchanged, however: the front cover of the newspaper is still given over to advertising, with the exception of the Christmas Eve issue.
      Monday's newspaper comes with small "signpost boxes" in red ink to highlight the details of the new look.
     
It is almost certain, too, that one of the biggest talking-points will be the increased use of colour in the layout, with the masthead pages of the different sections given a band of colour to distinguish them.
      It remains to be seen how the newspaper's readership takes to the makeover given to a familiar part of their breakfast table landscape, but if there are complaints it will hardly come as a surprise: throughout its 120-year history Helsingin Sanomat has enjoyed (sic) receiving criticism from all directions and all parts of the political and social spectrum.
     
By turns the paper has been slammed as overly leftist, rightist, commercial, dry, highbrow, lowbrow, EU-critical, EU-driven, excessively cautious on NATO membership, driving Finland into the arms of the Western alliance, and both business-hostile and unsympathetic to the needs of the working man...
     
In our weeklies on Tuesday we take a closer look at what it has been for a newspaper that is undoubtedly a Finnish institution (few dailies anywhere can boast such a large circulation relative to the available population) to be so egregiously "wrong" in the eyes of all and sundry for more than a century.


Links:
  Helsingin Sanomat (Wikipedia)

Helsingin Sanomat