Progress and women´s magazines

I gave a talk today at the Diaconia University of Applied Sciences to an auditorium filled with media students. The subject of the entire day was the responsibility of lifestyle media for what they present.

My talk (unfortunately in Finnish) is below. I focused on how a progressive lifestyle journalist should position himself or herself. I claim, that it is very easy to get stuck to the old rant on how journalists should be independent and not promote any specific idea. I claimed that the justification for being progressive for instance on sustainability can be found from the Ethical Code of Conduct for Journalists where it states that journalists have a responsibility to tell people what is happening in the world. And as climate change is the big issue of our time, you do your job poorly if you don´t build ethical and environmental norms into your work. Already journalists have made a commitment for human rights, this is the other big ethical test.

In the presentation I suggested that when dealing with sustainability, lifestyle media should build on what they do best: enthusiasm and encouragement for action. They should promote excellent and ethical choices with the same enthusiasm they promote a new eyeliner. Making things appealing works far better than the message about giving something up.

The third main point I raised was on how change in lifestyles happens. This I would claim is the ultimate test for women´s magazines. Most lifestyle media still deals with change by showing one person one morning transforming their life completely. This is understandable cos it´s easy to build a story around it. But if you actually look into research on how change happens, people who do big transformations always relate to other people. By showing this link and giving the readers tips on how to win support and get people along, lifestyle media could be one of the most powerful instigators of action for the better.

Edistyksellisyys ja naistenlehdet

View more presentations from Demos Helsinki.

Journalism is a service job

THE INTERVIEW
Originally uploaded by Akbar Simonse

In today´s Helsingin Sanomat a veteran public radio journalist Olli Ihamäki from YLE gives a wonderful but all too rare description of what a good journalist actually should do. He criticizes the current trend in radio where the audience is left to listen to a discussion between the host and a guest and where the role of the journalist is to fill the gaps between music.

Ihamäki reminds that the journalist should always be on the side of the listener. Quote from the article:
"Ihamäki´s ideal would be that the reporter would not come to the studio at all but would spend the day at swimming halls, in trams and in office buildings interviewing people."

How different would our newspapers and radio stations be if more journalists would follow this logic? It would bring a different kind of randomness to the broadcast but also challenge the journalists to use their medium to the full. As Ihamäki points out, the trend seems to be that journalists are more often leaving the description of things to experts rather than relying on their own professional skills.

Having mobile journalists or journalists assigned to different parts of town would be a great move towards citizen journalism whilst still maintaining journalistic standards. It would challenge journalists to open up the logic and processes of their work to the audience much more. Journalists would become trusted members of their respective communities, which most likely would bring across very different stories than we hear now. This is what the best regional papers still rely on - building stories out of the activities of people. Spending time with people usually has that influence that you become interested in people.

This clip is insane

I don´t know whether to feel sorry for CNN´s Anderson Cooper for having to try and make sense out of Sarah Palin´s PR officer Meg Stapleton or for Ms Stapleton having to explain the actions of her erratic boss. But one thing is for sure: this 5 minutes 49 seconds only proves that no normal logic works for Sarah Palin as a politician.

Next move: we just sit and wait for Levi Johnston´s tell-it-all book on the Palin family.

Really?

newspaper blackout poem
Originally uploaded by Precious Roy

The newspaper has been taking a bad beating lately. On Twitter I get daily tweets on this and that more or less informed thinker stating that in a couple of years the US will only have 2 newspapers left or that the medium as a totality is already beyond saving. It is time to pull the plug, they say.

I understand that argument to a certain extent. Newspapers as they are now are terminally ill. They have allowed themselves to turn into public broadcasters and forgotten that they have a role and responsibility in supporting, inspiring and building a community. They´ve turned into broadcasting media when people want largely the opposite. They have by and large raised themselves above the readers and cut down the return channel.

Building a community does not mean cutting down on journalistic standards. It also does not mean becoming more entertaining or shallow. It means having greater understanding on the people you are serving. Yes, I think journalism largely is a service job. This means newspapers need to take a fresh look on the competencies needed within their staff. Delivering the requested amount of characters on time is just not enough.

Unto Hämäläinen from Helsingin Sanomat has been lately an excellent but rare example of what being a good journalist today means. Whilst writing in-depth, well researched articles for the printed paper, he has hosted a popular yet analytical blog around elections which has gathered a constituency of commentators ranging from the Prime Minister to MPs or regular citizens. This has allowed the newspaper as well its community to gain a better understanding on the various sides of politics.

I would wish that newspapers would take use of the more emotional aspect of why we pay the annual fee. We buy a membership in a community and we wish to be recognised.

I would love them to emphasise that in the era of immediate TV and online coverage, the printed papers do not compete with being fastest but being the most complete and the most reliable. They are like that professor in our family who can explain a complicated subject in a coffee table. They can paint the big picture, show links and the people behind the actions in ways that most media is unable to.

But even more importantly, they have a role in setting the discussions at work, in the families or in the parliament. They introduce subjects to their community - often ones that the community is not expecting. A good newspaper surprises you daily when you find yourself reading something that you did not know that you were interested in.

I mean just from yesterday: ´diversity of Finnish forests´ would not have never emerged to my Google search bar.

Shaken, Yet Still Standing

SDP - social democratic party of finland
Originally uploaded by heipmann

Yesterday´s elections were quite exciting, I have to say. It is always fantastic and good for democracy when things get shaken. Here a few observations:

- True Finns: Most of Finnish media is making the wrong analysis on this political party. Putting the party leader Timo Soini and his folks in the same category with the Dutch islamophobe Geert Wilders is a misrepresentation of the truth. The policy and popularity of True Finns works much more on the anti-establishment card than on xenophobia. This is quite obvious when you listen to them in debates. The party has a natural attraction amongst poor pensioners or unemployed youth - people feeling abandoned by the illusion we call the welfare state. Taking these fears and this anger seriously is a difficult challenge for the rest of the parties.
And let´s face it: how low would the voting rate have been WITHOUT True Finns? The fact that people wish to express anti-establishment sentiments and disappointment by voting is something we should take joy from.

- SDP: That old poster in the picture tells it all. SDP´s slogan: We will make some noise on your behalf. A political party unable to provide a role for the citizen deserves a defeat. As someone wrote on Facebook today: the problems of this party-turned-institution are the same as the Lutheran Church´s. And it is not saved by recycling Blairite slogans from 1997. Defending the System goes down badly at a time when people are seeking for a sense of involvement and belonging. Yes We Can is not only a disguising slogan for old politics, it means that you actually involve people in making change happen. It is a new way of doing politics and calls for a new way of building trust and communities. If they have the courage, this is a great opportunity for Social Democrats: empowering the people in the margins to be change makers in their own lives.
And let´s face it: we have come far from the 1903 goal on the separation of church and state when the leading man of the Social Democrats is a priest who is not even a member of the party.

- Greens: Good tail wind, have to give them that. I am not really interested in the boxes provided by other parties for the Greens: garden party of the right or the new Communists? This discussion does not really solve anything and is purely an intellectual masturbation exercise of political hacks.
If I would be making strategies for the party, I would try to find ways to diversify the party´s image from the current one: an upper middle-class smart party posse setting themselves above the rest of the society. The Greens should listen carefully to the increasing comments on arrogance and inability to understand other view points. Softening of actions, image and policy might be worth considering.

- National Coalition (Kokoomus): Kokoomus is still the biggest party in Finland although they did not make their target of keeping four seats. The party ran a campaign relying highly on the youthful Minister of Finance and the Minister of Foreign Affairs (neither of whom were running). They ran a campaign focusing on good mood, simplifications and happy-happy-joy-joy - an exemplary campaign of the republic of entertainment.
But the party stumbled in the last weeks when some candidates pushed some content to the surface which did not fit the party line. Cartoon TV ads do not explain away candidates calling immigrants social bums or questioning climate change.
This is the destiny of all parties controlled by spin doctors: there comes a point when you need to realise that you just cannot control it all.

All and all, the results tell a good story. The parties which have invested in their local actions and on bringing new people in did well in these elections. The ones at a loss with their objectives were punished by the voters. This is what we call democracy.

Made It To The Cover

Volume Magazine issue 19
Originally uploaded by amsterboy

The Dutch magazine Volume has published an article of mine on how the logic and networks of youth cultures provide an inspiring model for European cooperation. Volume is an independent quarterly for architecture to go beyond itself and is a cooperation between:
Archis Foundation, Amsterdam
AMO, Rotterdam
C-LAB, Columbia University New York

First time I made it to a cover of a magazine. Here´s a teaser on the article:

"Several youth cultures show how difference can be a prerequisite rather than an obstacle to interaction. By giving serious attention to interaction practices in transnational youth cultures we could actually find answers to many of the diversity problems with which Europe currently struggles."

Volume can be bought from selected bookstores:
Amazon
NAI Publishers
Bruil
Archis

Institution First

Day 7/365
Originally uploaded by Timo Kirkkala

Today´s Helsingin Sanomat writes that the parliamentary committee reforming the national public broadcaster YLE is most likely going to suggest that YLE will be financed in the future through a separate YLE tax. Unlike the current license fee, this compulsory tax would be collected as part of the normal tax collection. It would not go into the government´s total budget but straight to YLE. Journalist Teemu Luukka writes:"It is not likely that the committee will suggest radical changes into (YLE´s) duties."

I had yesterday lunch with a Danish friend of mine. She is one of those social entrepeneurs like me, i.e. people searching for new solutions to current problems. She said that her current interest is in using standard design techniques also for the planning of public services. This would mean bringing the problem and the end user into the core of the design process. As she pointed out, the common public service design process works like the YLE case: how do we fund an existing institution in the future.

When the design process starts from the institution, we are already kill a big majority of good ideas even before they see the light of day. When we take an institution and its current structure for granted, it is hardly surprising that we do not find very good solutions.

Everyone following media discussion today would know that public service communications needs rethinking. This is not an issue of organisational reform but an issue of citizenship - what kind of information and analysis do we need in order to play our role as citizens in a better and more informed manner? Getting stuck on the word broadcasting avoids looking into a landscape of new tasks, new actors and more flexibility. Now the fix is making a poorly functioning funding system compulsory. So it´s band aid instead of recovery process.

The private media corporations (Viestinnän keskusliitto) have been calling for Finland to follow the BBC Trust´s example in having an independent body supervising YLE. When the reform is prepared by a parliamentary committee, this is very unlikely to happen.

Although I am somewhat skeptical to the total agenda of the anti-YLE campaign of the private actors, I would strongly support an independent supervisory board. I believe it would strengthen YLE´s role as a supervisor of the ones in power, which would need to get its legitimacy not from decision makers but from people directly. It would make clearer that we as citizens have rights to proper critique and information and this might someone work against those in power. That sometimes the benefit of the state and the benefit of the people are not equal.

An independent body would also widen YLE´s stakeholder basis, help its directors in creative thinking and in the end - provide better public service media for us and help us in doing our share in a democracy better.

Who Wants To Be A Journalist

piste
Originally uploaded by amsterboy

Last Friday was a good day. I met deals on a couple of work projects, had great breakfast in superb company and ended the day by visiting Sanoma Corporation´s media education space Piste.

I have been mongering (is that a word) about the state of media education for ages. I feel that it more than often focuses on protecting young people from "the media", treats children and teenagers and imbeciles, forgets the role of amateurs in creating media content and forgets notions of critical reading. Good description of the current debate here. For all this, it was great to visit Piste and see that someone knows how to do it.

Sanoma Corporation has build a sort of a mini-Helsinki into the basement of its headquarters. The participants are divided to teams with some of them working for the quality daily Helsingin Sanomat and some for the tabloid Ilta-Sanomat. They all get mobiles, maps and guidance from an editor. All teams working on the same story and in the end they need to decide within their team on the angle of the story, on the headline and the photo.

Piste emphasises the key things in journalism:
- that good journalism requires dedication, persistence and investigation. You need to keep calling people, checking information given to you and making sure that you make good notes.
- it shows the essence of team work and clear division of tasks.
- it strengthens understanding that journalism is very much also about choices in terms of angle. That even if you have the same information, the story is different in Ilta-Sanomat and Helsingin Sanomat. Piste also demonstrates well how different the story seems with a different headline.

The great thing is also that the groups are led by real journalists who can through their own work show what all these issues mean in real life. I am sure this makes the visiting teenagers listen much more carefully. Our guide for instance was telling how you need to constantly make choices for instance around the school shootings on when to publish the name of the shooter or a certain photo. She also shed some light on the collaboration with the police and fire department.

I would be surprised if someone after Piste would not want to become a journalist. Piste demonstrates superbly how fascinating the job really is and how top quality media education really is done.

Public Service

Entertainment has been one of the issues on the battlefield - whether public service broadcasters should do entertainment or leave it to the commercial competitors. Watching Sweden´s SVT´s work on the Eurovision Song Contest (they call it Melody Festival) shows how an innovative public service broadcaster can turn European cooperation amongst public service broadcasters into a national megaprojects reinvigorating areas by taking the semifinals to different parts of the country. It is entertainment but entertainments with a special value. Corny, camp but brilliant. In Sweden the national finale is the main thing, not how the Swedish entry ranks in the European arena. I kind of like that.

Watching this programme and looking into the issue of commercial screens, I must conclude that I do support the idea of an independent expert body to control, set limits and open new areas for public service communications and press work. I feel this would make YLE stronger, release YLE from (unnecessary) parliamentary control and also serve the society and the license fee payers better. It might help us in really articulating in a clearer way what is actually the public service in public broadcasting. BBC says:Educate, Entertain and Inform - I would go more for something like Empower, Encourage and Represent (I wrote about this issue in this blog in September).

Minorities in the Media

Henry Jenkins
Originally uploaded by Joi

"One is tempted to argue that African-Americans (and other minorities) enjoy greater opportunities to communicate beyond their own communities now than ever before. But we need to be careful in making that claim. Recent research suggests that there are far fewer minority characters on prime time network television shows this season than there were five years ago. There remains an enormous ratings gap between white and black Americans: the highest rating shows among black Americans often are among the lowest rated shows among white Americans. The exception, curiously enough, are reality television programs, like American Idol, which historically have had mixed race casts.

We've seen some increased visibility of black journalists and commentators throughout the 2008 campaign season -- and they may remain on the air throughout an Obama administration -- but we need to watch to make sure that they do not fade into the background again. But, if we follow your argument, even those figures who make it into the mainstream media are, at best, relaying critiques and discourses which originate within the black community and at worse, they are involved in a process of self-censorship which makes them an imperfect vehicle for those messages.

The paradox of race and media may be that black Americans have lost access to many of the institutions and practices which sustained them during an era of segregation without achieving the benefits promised by a more "integrated" media environment. And that makes this a moment of risk -- as well as opportunity -- for minority Americans.

I suspect we are over-stating the problem in some ways. There are certainly some serious constraints on minority participation in cyberspace but a world of networked publics also does offer some opportunities for younger African-Americans to deliberate together and form opinion, which we need to explore more fully here."

In the quote above, MIT Professor Henry Jenkins brings together the two issues that I am focusing on at the moment: future of media and diversity. Jenkins upholds his reputation as a critical, academic but enthusiastic researcher. In his blog, Jenkins is currently engaged in a debate on the future of African Americans communities online with Dayna Cunningham, the Executive Director of the Community Innovators Lab at MIT. In her first post, Cunningham described how the black voice is disappearing from the media sphere:

"However, I would argue that today, black politics has largely been reduced to the electoral and legislative spheres; African American media too often promote black celebrity and individual advancement, and along with much of the black civic infrastructure, rarely focus on freedom discourse as a means of exploring strategies for collective political action and accountability to black interests. Perhaps only the Church has survived as an independent space for black voice--and even the Church is sometimes compromised by "prosperity gospel" preachers who have little time for freedom discourse."

Jenkins answers well to the concerns expressed by Cunningham and acknowledges the risks posed by the fact that online it is very difficult to contain ideas in a certain context. There are still two chapters to follow in their discussion, I recommend staying alert.

Spreading Meanings, Not Viruses

Don't Flu Yourself
Originally uploaded by daviddaneman

Last weeks have been quite exciting in terms of finding a new way of working. Going from an office job to freelancing has meant learning a new sense of pace. All the things I do currently are assignments where my work is measured on the originality of the ideas I produce, not based on the hours I spend at the office. It has also meant that I need to learn a new way of implementing reading and browsing as an essential part of my weekly routine. They count in the end much more than coordination meetings. It is fun - I give you that -, but it is also work.

I have developed a completely new way of using the Web. At the hectic office I used the Internet mostly like fast food, like media snacks (munched easily with increasing frequency and maximum speed – like chips – a description from Miller in Wired) between emails and phone calls. Now I take daily an hour or two to go through a dozen or so blogs, mark interesting stuff on Delicious and develop a more systematic way of finding content. Finding content that matters takes time and diligence.

The best thing I have discovered is Henry Jenkins´ blog. MIT´s Media Professor Jenkins focuses on what people are doing with media rather than on what the media is doing to people. His approach is critical but enthusiastic and he does not shy away from using very current examples for making his case.

His 8-part essay If It Doesn't Spread, It's Dead is something I would recommend for everyone working with brands and media culture. Jenkins sees consumers as empowered and intelligent species using media for their own purposes and goes beyond the discussion on virals. He talks about the spreadability of media – that citizens spread and reform content rather than passively carry a virus. That spreading media is an essential part of reputation management online. Just think of your own Facebook usage – what you link and post tells your “friends” a lot about who you are.

A statement by Jenkins that is highly useful for instance for my work with StrangerFestival: loss of producers´ control over meaning is a precondition for circulation. Spreadable media memes have to available for remixing before transferring so that people can use them for their own purposes to recreate meaning. As John Fiske puts it: this is where mass culture turns into popular culture. From a producer´s point of view creating media content that “sticks” on people would be wonderful but today´s successful content is one that spreads, shapes and puzzles. Which is actually quite liberating and empowering if you really think about it.

Newsflash

helsingin sanomat in Thai F loung?
Originally uploaded by petezpan

As a preparation for a future work assignment, I am paying rather close attention at the moment on journalism around immigration. It is in general quite positive that at least in this country the quality media has realised that they need broader coverage over the subject to help people understand the reasons and consequences.

However, one seems to stumble at times. In yesterday´s Helsingin Sanomat journalist Riitta Vainio wrote a 3/4-page article with the title:
"Family culture amongst immigrants changes often painfully - Immigrant man seeks often for a good wife from the country of origin." Vainio´s article was published in the domestic news section but closer inspection shows that there is actually very little news or factual information in the article. The article´s references to its rather generalising statements are vague to say the least. Here are some examples:
"According to some local policemen a big portion of home alerts comes from immigrant families."
"In some families penalties to children are still accepted although they are known to be illegal."
"The portion of single parents amongst Somalis may be partly due to polygamy but there is no research."
"Child protection cases occur also in immigrant families."

There are only two quotes from experts in the article. Most of the article works on generalisations such as "the Russian-speaking", "the Somalians", "many" and "some". The article ends with the other expert quote being:
"Researcher Minna Säävälä from Väestöliitto emphasises that for a large majority of immigrants family is a resource, not the source of problems."

If I may, quite bizarre and somewhat sloppy journalism from a paper usually living up to high journalistic standards.

Some Men Are More Equal Than Others

Milk Movie Poster
Originally uploaded by monikalel42

"All men are created equal. No matter how hard you try, you can never erase those words." That quote from gay activist Harvey Milk was one of the most moving scenes in Milk, the film on his life and death. Milk´s bold stand on equality led finally to his assassination. Some of his positions sound radical still in 2009 like the strategy that only by showing that we all have gay friends, teachers and family members, you truly pave the way for general support for equality.

Gus van Sant´s film is a great act in showing the struggle Milk and his peers went through, how far we as societies have come from those days (homosexuality is largely decriminalised) and, sadly, how far we still are from living up to those words (Proposition 8 passed in California just a few months back). And in the Obama era, it is good to remember that he was not the first one coining a phrase like:"You gotta give them hope."

The Academy Awards take place in a week or so and I have now seen three of the Best Picture nominees: Milk, Frost/Nixon and Slumdog Millionaire. Even before seeing Benjamin Button and The Reader, I dare to state the wish that these three films would win the main prizes. As much as The Reader looks into guilt and human responsibility, I feel the other three films are ones that need more the boost of the win: Milk is a powerful caption of the human sacrifices on the road towards true equality and one of the people who have paved way for all minorities. Slumdog Millionaire captures the aspiration, diversity, celebration and inequality called India and is also one of the rare films that do not need a white man telling a story of Asia or Africa (read: The Last King of Scotland etc.). And finally, Frost/Nixon shakes us awake of the corrupting influence of power and shows what is really the power of journalism.

I would dare to make the following wishes:
Best Picture: Milk
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Frank Langella or Sean Penn
Best Director: Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Actress in a leading or supporting role are tricky as I have seen none of the films and actor in a supporting role is hard to judge before seeing Philip Seymour Hoffman and Michael Shannon.

That´s Me

Through a Hazed Mirror
Originally uploaded by Catch the dream

I love these kind of projects. The Finnish Literature Society calls Finns every ten years to send in their stories of what they did on a particular day. These stories are important material to researchers in history and other cultural studies. Ten years ago they got 23 000 stories of Finnish life on a specific day. Today is that day again. I am taking part and encourage every Finn reading this to do the same. You can send in your story the latest on 28 February, more details here.

I am currently involved in a project where this kind of material would definitely be very handy. With a group of people we are putting together a cultural statement around national identity and self image. More details on that later.

When you talk about a self image of a nation, the last weeks have been interesting in this country. Helsingin Sanomat published a big story yesterday stating that Nokia has threatened to leave the country if legislation is not changed in a way that allows employers to look into the basic information (sender, recipient, form of attachment, time etc.) of an email if they suspect leakage of company secrets. Nokia and the government deny these accusations but it sure is interesting how the constitutional committee of the Parliament sees no problem with a legislative change that according to a great majority of legal experts they consulted is in full contradiction with constitutional rights to privacy of correspondence and freedom of speech. Not to take any stand on the validity of these accusation by Helsingin Sanomat but this is once again an example how the idea of civil rights and liberties is not really high on the Finnish political agenda.

This kind of discussion never really catches fire in Finland. This country has a tremendous amount of CCTV cameras and quite extensive rights to security guards but most Finns still think that this is all good and you have no reason for worry if you have not done anything wrong. It all stems from the idea that we are good and honest people and so are all the people holding these extensive powers. Following the same line is the idea that Finland is corruption-free. I have often wondered why there´s no more discussion about the way power ends in the same hands when a person can be at the same time in the city council, in the parliament and in the cabinet. The arguments I have heard are not very convincing:
1. this allows information to go smoothly through the system
2. people have the right to vote whom they want

Journalist Jarmo Aaltonen of Helsingin Sanomat follows the Finnish mentality disturbingly well in his article about politicians sitting in company boards:

"Of course different obligations influence people, some more, some less. This, however, does not make them automatically corrupt criminals. This is just the price one pays for democracy and open society. The alternative would be prohibiting all human interaction."

Seriously, this was published in the biggest daily of the country.

I Want My TV

Today Frost/Nixon premieres in Finnish cinemas. Just yesterday the film was nominated for an Academy Award for best direction, best actor in a leading role and best picture. I have been waiting for this film with an eagerness I have seldom experienced. There are a number of reasons why.

Some years back I was visiting London for work and met up with a friend of mine, a British playwright of Indian descent. The British media had only one issue on that day and neither us or anyone else could avoid the topic: Celebrity Big Brother on Channel 4 showing how nonsense celebrity Jade Goody and a number of other contenders were bullying Indian actress Shilpa Shetty in a racist manner seldom seen on primetime television. The white English women were according to my interpretation intimidated by the successful and beautiful Indian superstar and decided to gang up on her revealing all their prejudices on the Indians.

A large portion of the British quality media took a unified stand: the fuss around the programme was exaggerated. However, during our drink on that London afternoon I got another look into the issue. I still remember her telling me:"I am born in this country and so are my children. My children have been glued to the television during Celebrity Big Brother as they see on screen remarks they hear daily in school. As Shetty, they are told to go back to their own country. What country is that for a 10-year-old child with both parents born in the UK and one of them having Indian parents?"

That personal take showed me a part of the media often forgotten in academic media analysis and journalistic critique. The way the media validates and presents everyday situations and in that way acknowledges that these things do happen. By the media covering them, they are also submitted to a list of subjects suitable for private discussions. This has been the power of telenovelas in South America covering HIV-AIDS or As The World Turns showing a gay kiss.

After our drink she rushed to the theatre to see the "IT" play of the moment: Frost/Nixon. I tried to get tickets to it without success on the last moment.

I ran into Frost again two years ago when visiting the Museum of Television and Radio in Los Angeles and watching clips of his most famous interviews - including the Nixon one. Using the same strategy as he got Nixon to talk, his soft, direct but polite style brought into the surface some of the deepest thoughts of Muhammad Ali on black supremacy or Robert Kennedy opening up in his ideals. As one can see also in this clip from an interview with Thatcher, his background research forces people to answer directly without having to take refuge in hostility towards the guest.

I love television. I really do. In the work of David Frost as well as in the fuss around Big Brother, television has the power to reveal truths of ourselves and our societies - in more and less idealistic manners. It can facilitate people opening up sensitive discussions using commenting of a television programme as the cover up.

I never understood the people who take pride from not watching TV. How would it sound like if I would state at a fancy dinner party that I categorically don´t read printed material as I just don´t have the time?

Cool with a Conscience

Monocle Magazine Issue 171
Originally uploaded by genius style

It is rather refreshing to be proven wrong at times. I had seen Tyler Brûlé´s Monocle advertised for months on shop windows of every respectable news store. I kept bumping into his interviews in everything from Kauppalehti to Fantastic Man where he was branded as the definition of cool. I read his Fast Lane columns regularly from Financial Times, which I usually found kind of light on content. I mean two consecutive columns on the perfect men´s bag for a weekend trip maybe explains what I mean.

I always found Wallpaper extremely snobbish and pretentious so the expectations were not high when I purchased both Monocle and Intelligent Life yesterday from Stockmann. Intelligent life unfortunately proved me right - I glanced the magazine through and found very little worth reading. It somehow reminded me of Finnish Gloria women´s magazine´s failed attempt to make a men´s lifestyle publication relying on the holy union of cigars and sports cars.

Monocle, however, I found myself reading from cover to cover. Of course it is filled with luxury product ads but you kind of know that already when you pay 12 euros for a magazine. And then again, luxury product ads never weakened the content of Vanity Fair. But I was fascinated by Monocle mainly because:

- it promotes good ideas and people behind them (like Italy´s minister of public administration suggesting an Erasmus programme for civil servants in order for them to think outside the box or a coffee shop owner in Portland showing his customers where the coffee beans come from and bringing producers over to the US to see the other end of the service chain)
- it addresses sustainability as the thing to do, not a phenomenon we need to react to
- its graphic design is amazingly fresh and playful
- it uses a lot of illustrations
- it is strongly global with a broad correspondents´ network and not a Western publication with "voices from the rest of the world"
- it shows me a lot of Japan, a society that I find superinteresting
- it talks about ethics, local produce, making things well
- it dares to feature technological breakthroughs that will actually make our life better
- it features well-made, beautiful products that I actually would like to buy

I am hooked. Some might say that this post should have been written like 18 months ago but that is exactly the Wallpaper attitude I detest. Well done, Mr Brûlé.

This Is Who I Am

Saira Khan
Originally uploaded by amsterboy

Having spent a tremendous amount of time in discussions on diversity in the last few years, I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to hear at times also something different than the standard "let´s all just get along" rhetoric. Yesterday´s Diversity Show conference by the Dutch public broadcasters and the European Broadcasting Union was a fresh and bold attempt to get beyond the discussion about problems and cultures. Diversity Show looked at multiculturalism in a way that inspires people and offers us in culture and media fields much more solutions: how diversity on screen and in the workforce allows us to do our work better, find new subjects and make more interesting content.

I was most impressed by the approach, which the presenter Saira Khan and many others had chosen. They defined themselves on stage before the audience had a chance to make their assumptions. They made the statement I would love to hear more often: this is who I am, I am not asking for any special treatment and I have no problem talking about my background - but allow me to do it on my terms. Saira Khan coined the issue well referring to her experience in The Apprentice TV show:"When the rules are the same, you get surprising results."

Personally and professionally the conference was a great inspiration for me. It gave me more confidence that we are doing things right in StrangerFestival: we allow the young video makers to choose what they talk about and what matters to them. We are all experts in our own lives and equality allows us to co-exist and share and feel part of something bigger. This does not mean shying away from differences, it means recognition of everyone´s right to define themselves. Diversity for us in StrangerFestival means that we strive for getting as different voices as possible from a diverse youth population, i.e. giving opportunities for more people and getting better content. In this manner we take a deliberate stand away from projects where minorities are invited to explain how different they are.

Way too often diversity is tackled on the level of an individual and not on the level of the system. Diversity needs to come in to the game in the recruitment phase and when negotiating the shared rules, not only in individual job interviews. As the speaker from IBM said in the Diversity Show:"If I would ever feel that I am promoted because of my cultural background and not my performance, I would leave. But the fact that I know the number of women and minorities in executive positions at IBM, means that someone is keeping score."

And as the last praise for yesterday, the great thing the Dutch public broadcasters had done was making a conference on diversity fun, visually incredible and good entertainment. I have often wondered why people who are able to do great programmes, are not able to translate their skills into making great events. Diversity Show built on competences from television in terms of length and formats of speeches, use of visuals and interaction amongst people. As EBU´s Head of Television Björn Erichsen put it yesterday: Diversity Show has set a new standard for European media conferences.

Out of Touch

Jutta Urpilainen in YLE TV debate 2008
Originally uploaded by amsterboy

Had a free day today and decided to watch the latest YLE debate for local elections in Finland. For me, having spent last weeks following American elections, the Finnish experience is somewhat disappointing. It is unbelievable how the chairpersons of Finnish political parties tend to forget that the voters in the elections are not the local governments but the people. The Chairs only talk about institutions, infrastructure and government. What people want and what people should do seems to be forgotten both by the politicians as well as the journalists hosting the debate. The great thing YLE, however, have done is bringing the Party Secretaries into the studio to help the Chairs in details.

The weakest from the debaters based on my judgement were the leader of the Greens Tarja Cronberg, leader of the Centre Party Matti Vanhanen and leader of the Social Democrats Jutta Urpilainen. Minister of Labour Cronberg spoke twice in the first hour and is not able to push forward the Green agenda on services and quality of life. She tries to balance urban life and rural areas but gets somewhat confused with all the aspects. She becomes a voice of the government rather than representing the Greens in local politics although she improves her performance towards the end. Prime Minister Vanhanen's problems are somewhat alike. As Prime Minister he seems to act like he would be somewhat above the others and ends up coming across as smug and arrogant and not willing to take any criticism. Opposition leader Urpilainen however falls into the trap of populism. She is not able to answer questions on how Social Democrats would fund their "more, more, more" agenda. Urpilainen also gets unfortunately agitated when pushed into the corner with tough questions.

The winners of the debate are the populist True Finns and the centre liberal National Coalition. They get their ideological message across (True Finns about defenfing the small man and National Coalition on balancing costs and income). Leader of the National Coalition, Minister of Finance Jyrki Katainen manages to stay calm and push through the message that the current government has invested in municipalities. Leader of the centre-right Swedish People's Party, Minister of Culture Stefan Wallin manages also to be clear and talk about caring and climate change.

But the key problem is not between people, it is in the nature of the debate. The most absurd moment was the discussion over a recent poll where 62 % of respondents think that politicians can be bought in urban planning decisions. The reaction of the Party Secretary Jarmo Korhonen:"No Finnish politician can be bought. I know." That's the way Finnish dialogue works.

Overall the discussion stays in concepts only familiar to politicians and very seldom looks into the position of the individual in the changes. Dear leaders, no one uses words such as structure and resource in normal language. It enforces the idea that in order to take part in politics, you need to learn a new language.

Printed Element of Surprise

Quran
Originally uploaded by manitoon

A friend of mine, a great Swedish journalist Arne Ruth, described well a while back the rare quality - some could say unique selling point - that newspapers and magazines possess. According to Arne, the web very seldom leads us to information that we did not know that we were interested in. This is very evident on Google where we seldom bump into stuff that triggers us if we were not specifically looking for it. According to Arne, that is the key selling point of the newspaper. I must say I agree with Arne to a large extent. I am still desperate for a way to cope with the insane amount of content that would still contain an element of unpredictability.

A clear example of this wonderful quality of newspapers was the Guardian of last Friday, which I picked up on my way to a lunch on my free day. While eating my sandwich, I glanced through the news section. Before I got halfway, I threw the newspaper into my gym bag. I bumped into it again on my lazy Sunday and found myself getting completely excited by a big article on the Qur´an. Madeleine Bunting´s and Ziauddin Sardar´s debate on interpretation of the holy book actually taught me new things. Sardar´s radical position of trying to read the Qur´an in a straight forward way, without the historical load really fascinated me.

"For me the Qur´an is a living, dynamic book", Sardar wrote. "This is not just a definition of a believer. It is also a statement about belief...So, with new determination, I say that we Muslims have to teach ourselves to read and think about the Qur´an without the weight of tradition and classical commentaries. Muslim scholars and experts should not exist as gatekeepers, permanently excluding us from using our knowledge and insight to make sense of the Qur´an for ourselves."

Through what kind of Google search would I ever bump into this?

Old Boys' Club Challenged

Finland-Russia Border
Originally uploaded by shesewslovely

Finnish politics just does not stop amusing me. Senior foreign policy experts including some former foreign ministers are currently criticising the current minister Alexander Stubb for too much openness. The situation is so bloody Finnish that it gives me a headache.

The professors and retired politicians are annoyed that Stubb is opening up the diplomatic circle by allowing the daily Helsingin Sanomat to publish assesments of Finnish ambassadors on the status of world politics. Stubb asked these reports following the Georgian conflict and then decided to allow the main daily to publish some of them anonymously.

I read the article based on the reports. There is nothing shocking. The diplomats are divided between more skeptic and more optimistic ones when it comes to Russian relations with the European Union. Some express doubts on the future of the United Nations as a conflict mediator. Some use a bit livelier language such as:
"Finland needs to decrease its dependency on Russian energy. This should be done gradually and quietly, not in a demonstrating manner by fearmongering on the Russian threat. But it needs to be done. The US Marines have a saying:''If you grab them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow'. i presume the Russian know the proverb too."

So let's get this straight. The Minister paid by us asked civil servants paid by us to assess global politics and then the minister decided to share these reports with us without sharing the names of the ambassadors. Former foreign minister Paasio wonders whether this leads to people thinking twice before telling things to Finnish diplomats. Some of the other commentators have been wondering what it does to our international reputation when diplomats drift away from the country's policy. Come on. Anonymous and differing reports from different corners of the world lead at least in my thinking to greater respect towards the men and women in our diplomatic service. What is better service to the people than allowing us to understand what are the cross currents guiding our foreign policy? I cannot help thinking that it works for some people's benefit to keep up the image that foreign policy is super secretive and not meant for the Joe on the street to understand.