Helsingin Sanomat

Last updated

Helsingin Sanomat
Helsingin Sanomat wordmark.svg
TypeDaily newspaper
Format Compact
Owner(s) Sanoma
Editor Erja Yläjärvi
Founded1889;135 years ago (1889) as Päivälehti
1905 as Helsingin Sanomat
Political alignment Liberalism [1]
Language Finnish
Headquarters Helsinki, Finland
Circulation 339,437 (2019)
Website www.hs.fi

Helsingin Sanomat, abbreviated HS and colloquially known as Hesari, is the largest subscription newspaper in Finland and the Nordic countries, owned by Sanoma. Except after certain holidays, it is published daily. Its name derives from that of the Finnish capital, Helsinki, where it is published. It is considered a newspaper of record for Finland.

Contents

History and profile

The front page of the Helsingin Sanomat for July 7, 1904 The front page of the Helsingin Sanomat for July 7, 1904.jpg
The front page of the Helsingin Sanomat for July 7, 1904

The paper was founded in 1889 [2] as Päivälehti , when Finland was a Grand Duchy under the Tsar of Russia. [3]

Political censorship by the Russian authorities, prompted by the paper's strong advocacy of greater Finnish freedoms and even outright independence, forced Päivälehti to often temporarily suspend publication, and finally to close permanently in 1904. [4] Its proprietors re-opened the paper under its current name in 1905. [5]

Founded as the organ of the Young Finnish Party, the paper has been politically independent and non-aligned since 1932. [2] [6] During the Cold War period Helsingin Sanomat was among the Finnish newspapers which were accused by the Soviet Union of being the instrument of US propaganda, and the Soviet Embassy in Helsinki frequently protested the editors of the paper. [7]

Helsingin Sanomat has a long history as a family business, owned by the Erkko family. [8] It is currently owned by the Sanoma media group which also owns Ilta-Sanomat . [9] The relationship between the owners of Helsingin Sanomat and Finland's government have sometimes been close. For instance, during the run-up to the Winter War, Eljas Erkko was at the same time the paper's publisher and Finland's foreign minister.

Helsingin Sanomat strongly advocated Finland joining the European Union in the run-up to the decision to do so in 1994. It has also openly expressed support for Finland's membership of NATO. [10]

Mikael Pentikäinen was the editor-in-chief until May 2013 when he was fired from the post. [11] [12] Riikka Venäläinen replaced him temporarily in the post. [11] After Riikka Venäläinen the post has been held by Kaius Niemi. [13]

After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the newspaper established a Russian-language news website to cover the war. In May 2022, Russian authorities blocked access to the website of the newspaper. [14]

On 5 April 2023, editor-in-chief Kaius Niemi was arrested for driving under the influence. He was fined in court and resigned from his post. Erja Yläjärvi became the new editor-in-chief in August. [15]

Format

Helsingin Sanomat is published daily in Finnish in compact format with the exception of the days after public holidays when the paper does not appear. Subscriptions make up 97% of the newspaper's circulation. [16] The front page is usually devoted to advertisements.

The newspaper was published in broadsheet format until 6 January 2013. [17]

The paper also has a monthly supplement named Kuukausiliite (Finnish for Monthly Supplement), and a weekly TV guide and entertainment-oriented supplement named Nyt (meaning Now in English). Between 1999 and 2012 there were also both Finnish and English-language online newspaper editions. [18]

Content of Helsingin Sanomat can be accessed also through mobile devices.

Circulation and influence

Current office in Sanomatalo, Helsinki Sanomatalo - Helsinki - 13.9.2013.jpg
Current office in Sanomatalo, Helsinki

The circulation of Helsingin Sanomat was 476,163 copies in 1993, making it the most read newspaper in Finland. [6] In the period of 1995–96 the paper sold 470,600 copies. [19] Its circulation was 446,380 copies in 2001, making it the largest paper in the country. [20] In 2008 the paper sold 412,421 on weekdays [16] (a change of −1.8% from 2007) and 468,505 copies on Sundays (−1.3%). In 2011 the daily had a circulation of 365,994 copies, making it the most read paper in the country. [21] The same year it was also the largest paper in terms of readership. [21]

Approximately 75% of households in the Helsinki metropolitan area subscribe to Helsingin Sanomat, and it functions as the region's local paper. Its total daily circulation is well over 400,000, or about 8% of Finland's total population, making it the biggest daily subscription newspaper in the Nordic countries. This reaches about 14% of all households in Finland.[ citation needed ]

The paper is a significant factor in Finnish society and in public opinion. [10] Pertti Klemola, a Finnish journalist and scholar, once called it a state authority, an institution with its own independent social and political will. [22]

In June 2009 the site was the sixth most popular Finnish website. [23] In 2010 it was the seventh most visited website in Finland in 2010 and was visited by 1,236,527 people per week. [24]

Helsingin Sanomat International Edition

The English-language section of the Helsingin Sanomat website, the Helsingin Sanomat International Edition (HSIE), ran for thirteen years. [25]

The International Edition launched on 14 September 1999 with the aim of informing readers of news from Finland during the Finnish presidency of the European Union. [26] It continued after the European presidency owing to the quantity of readers it was getting became one of the major English-language sources of news regarding Finland—making it popular with English-speaking immigrants to the country.

The Helsingin Sanomat International Edition closed down on 26 October 2012. [27] English material is now published in cooperation with Helsinki Times weekly newspaper. [28] For a while, Helsingin Sanomat also published some of its material in Russian, but the service was discontinued on 6 October 2014. [29]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helsinki</span> Capital and most populous city of Finland

Helsinki is the capital and most populous city in Finland. It is located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and serves as the seat of the Uusimaa region in southern Finland. Approximately 675,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.25 million in the capital region, and 1.58 million in the metropolitan area. As the most populous urban area in Finland, it is the country's most significant centre for politics, education, finance, culture, and research. Helsinki is situated 80 kilometres (50 mi) to the north of Tallinn, Estonia, 360 kilometres (220 mi) to the north of Riga, Latvia, 400 kilometres (250 mi) to the east of Stockholm, Sweden, and 300 kilometres (190 mi) to the west of Saint Petersburg, Russia. Helsinki has significant historical connections with these four cities.

<i>Ilta-Sanomat</i> Finnish tabloid newspaper

Ilta-Sanomat is one of Finland's two prominent tabloid size evening newspapers and the second largest paper in the country. Its counterpart and biggest rival is Iltalehti.

Sanoma Corporation is Finland's largest media group and a European education publisher. The company has media business in Finland and an education business in twelve European countries, including Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Italy and Spain. Sanoma Corporation is headquartered in Helsinki. At the end of 2023, Sanoma net sales totalled €1.393 billion and company had approximately 5,000 employees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aatos Erkko</span>

Aatos Juho Michel Erkko was a Finnish newspaper editor, newspaper publisher, and the main owner of the Sanoma Corporation and the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, of which he was also the editor in chief.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBT rights in Finland</span>

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in Finland are among the most advanced in the world. Both male and female same-sex sexual activity have been legal in Finland since 1971 with "promotion" thereof decriminalized and the age of consent equalized in 1999. Homosexuality was declassified as an illness in 1981. Discrimination based on sexual orientation in areas such as employment, the provision of goods and services, etc., was criminalized in 1995 and discrimination based on gender identity in 2005.

<i>Päivälehti</i>

Päivälehti was a newspaper in Finland, which was then a Grand Duchy under the Czar of Russia. The paper was founded in 1889 as the organ of the Young Finnish Party and was published on six days a week. The founding company of the paper was Sanoma which also started its activities in the same year. The founder of the paper was the Finnish journalist Eero Erkko who also served as its editor-in-chief.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helsingin Suomalainen Yhteiskoulu</span> Secondary, sixth form school in Finland

Helsingin Suomalainen Yhteiskoulu, commonly abbreviated SYK, is a free elementary, middle and high school in the Etelä-Haaga district of Helsinki, Finland.

The St. Petersburg Times was a weekly newspaper issued in St. Petersburg, Russia. It served the expatriate community, tourists, and Russians interested in an international perspective on local and world affairs. Publication began in May 1993, and was suspended on 24 December 2014. The editorial staff tweeted that the situation was connected with the economic crisis in Russia and current legislative environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arvid Järnefelt</span>

Arvid Järnefelt was a Finnish judge and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Päivi Räsänen</span> Finnish politician

Päivi Maria Räsänen, née Kuvaja, is a Finnish politician. The chairwoman of the Christian Democrats from 2004 to 2015, she was the Minister of the Interior of Finland between 2011 and 2015.

Erkko is a Finnish family known for their ownership of the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johan Bäckman</span> Finnish political activist, propagandist, and author

Erkki Johan Bäckman is a Finnish political activist, propagandist, author, eurosceptic, and convicted stalker working for the Russian government. Bäckman has been a prominent Finnish propagandist in Russia who has actively participated in long-standing operations to propagate anti-Finnish and anti-Western Russian propaganda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katainen Cabinet</span> 72nd cabinet of Finland

The Katainen Cabinet was the 72nd cabinet of Finland, formed as a result of the 2011 post-parliamentary election negotiations between the Finnish parliamentary parties. Led by Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen of the National Coalition Party (NCP), 12 ministers of the 19-minister government represented the NCP and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), while the Left Alliance, the Green League, the Swedish People's Party (RKP) and the Christian Democrats share seven minister portfolios. On June 22, the Parliament confirmed Katainen's election as the Prime Minister and President Tarja Halonen inaugurated the government. Two Left Alliance MPs voted against Katainen, for which they were formally reprimanded by the Left Alliance's parliamentary group. On 25 March 2014, the rest of Left Alliance left the cabinet over dispute on a package of spending cuts and tax rises.

This article is about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) history in Finland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digelius Music</span> Record shop in Finland

Digelius Music is a record shop and internet retailer located in Viiskulma, Helsinki, Finland. It has been functioning in more or less the same place since 1971. Officially its business is "retail of music and video recordings." There are several record shops in the same or neighbouring blocks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eero Erkko</span> Finnish journalist and politician

Eero Erkko was a Finnish journalist and politician. He served as minister of social affairs from 27 November 1918 to 17 April 1919, minister of transport and public works from 17 April to 15 August 1919 and Minister of Trade and Industry from 15 August 1919 to 15 March 1920. He was a member of the Diet of Finland from 1894 to 1900 and again from 1905 to 1906 and of the Parliament of Finland from 1907 to 1919, representing the Young Finnish Party until 1918 and the National Progressive Party from 1918 to 1919.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jan Erola</span> Finnish journalist

Jan Erola is a Finnish communications entrepreneur and former journalist and book publisher. Erola is the publisher of the online publication Nordic Defence Review and is also the CEO of his own Kravat Oy, a communications consultancy company. Since January 2000, he has appeared hundreds of times as a regular news commentator in the popular Jälkivisaat weekly news analysis section of Yleisradio's TV1 morning television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jukka Mallinen</span> Finnish translator, author and interpreter

Jukka Mallinen is a Finnish author, poet, translator and interpreter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sanomala</span> Printer in Vantaa, Finland

Sanomala is a printing press of the Sanoma newspaper company located in the district of Martinlaakso in Vantaa, Finland. The press is used to print Helsingin Sanomat, Ilta-Sanomat, Hufvudstadsbladet and other newspapers of the company. Helsingin Sanomat alone forms over two thirds of the total printing volume. The press also prints minute amounts of newspapers from different companies. The surface area of the Sanomala press is 5.4 hectares. As well as the Sanoma newspaper company, the building also hosts premises for other companies in the graphics industry.

Laura Åkerlund is a Finnish opera stage director and pianist. In 2019 she was a finalist for the position of Directrice Générale in the Opéra de Lyon as well as a finalist in 2021 for the same position in the Opéra National de Bordeaux.

References

  1. ↑ "Helsingin Sanomat". Archived from the original on 22 July 2022. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
  2. 1 2 The Europa World Year Book 2003. Taylor & Francis. 10 July 2003. p. 1613. ISBN   978-1-85743-227-5. Archived from the original on 4 July 2024. Retrieved 20 November 2014.
  3. ↑ Sanoma News: History Archived 14 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ↑ Sanoma News: History Archived 15 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ↑ Sanoma News: History Archived 15 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  6. 1 2 Bernard A. Cook (2001). Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. p. 384. ISBN   978-0-8153-4057-7.
  7. ↑ Esko Salminen (1998). "The Struggle Over Freedom of Speech in the North The Finnish Press Gave Obeisance to Moscow, but did not Succumb to the Kremlin's Propaganda Programme during the Cold War Years 1968-1991". Scandinavian Journal of History. 23 (3–4): 244. doi:10.1080/03468759850115972.
  8. ↑ Helsingin Sanomat: Who? Aatos Erkko Archived 1 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ Georgios Terzis (2007). European Media Governance: National and Regional Dimensions. Intellect Books. p. 100. ISBN   978-1-84150-192-5.
  10. 1 2 Juho Rahkonen (2007). "Public Opinion, Journalism and the Question ofFinland's Membership of NATO" (PDF). Nordicom Review. 28 (2). Archived (PDF) from the original on 14 December 2014. Retrieved 13 December 2014.
  11. 1 2 "Helsingin Sanomat chief fired". YLE. 28 May 2013. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 15 December 2014.
  12. ↑ "Iisalmen Sanomat: Former HS chief proposes alliance between Yle and newspapers". YLE. 21 July 2013. Archived from the original on 21 December 2014. Retrieved 15 December 2014.
  13. ↑ "Kaius Niemi johtamaan Helsingin Sanomia". Yle Uutiset (in Finnish). 3 September 2013. Archived from the original on 10 March 2016. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
  14. ↑ "Russia blocks access to Helsingin Sanomat". Yle News. 27 May 2022. Archived from the original on 4 July 2024. Retrieved 28 May 2022.
  15. ↑ "Court fines former Helsingin Sanomat editor €24k for drink driving offence". YLE. 5 April 2023. Archived from the original on 7 December 2023. Retrieved 2 January 2024.
  16. 1 2 Finnish Audit Bureau of Circulations Statistics Archived 1 June 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  17. ↑ "Ensimmäinen HS-tabloidi on tässä". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). 7 January 2012. Archived from the original on 25 February 2014. Retrieved 7 January 2013.
  18. ↑ "Helsingin Sanomat: About". Archived from the original on 18 August 2009. Retrieved 25 August 2009.
  19. ↑ Media Policy: Convergence, Concentration & Commerce. SAGE Publications. 24 September 1998. p. 10. ISBN   978-1-4462-6524-6. Archived from the original on 26 July 2023. Retrieved 2 October 2016.
  20. ↑ Mary Kelly; Gianpietro Mazzoleni; Denis McQuail (31 January 2004). The Media in Europe: The Euromedia Handbook. SAGE Publications. p. 62. ISBN   978-0-7619-4132-3.
  21. 1 2 Sanna Koskinen; et al. (2014). "Media portrayal of older people as illustrated in Finnish newspapers". International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being. 9. Archived from the original on 13 December 2014. Retrieved 13 December 2014.
  22. ↑ Pertti Klemola (1981). Helsingin Sanomat, sananvapauden monopoli. Otava. p. 13. ISBN   951-1-06118-6.
  23. ↑ "TNS Gallup Metrix weekly site rankings". TNS Gallup. Archived from the original on 4 April 2012. Retrieved 6 July 2009.
  24. ↑ Kari Karppinen; Hannu Nieminen; Anna-Laura Markkanen (2014). "High Professional Ethos in a Small, Concentrated Media Market" (PDF). Blogipalvelut. Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 April 2016. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
  25. ↑ "Helsingin Sanomat closes down International Edition". Yle Uutiset. 30 October 2012. Archived from the original on 4 July 2024. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  26. ↑ William Moore (23 October 2012). "Things Have Changed (The End is Nigh)". Helsingin Sanomat International Edition. Retrieved 31 October 2012. On 14 September 1999… The Helsingin Sanomat International Edition was launched on this day on an unsuspecting world, initially for the duration of that first Finnish EU Presidency spell.
  27. ↑ "The International Edition Closed Down on October 26th". Helsinki Sanomat International Edition. 28 October 2012. Archived from the original on 2 November 2012. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  28. ↑ "Helsingin Sanomat and Helsinki Times to cooperate". Helsinki Times. 13 November 2013. Archived from the original on 9 November 2014. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
  29. ↑ Русскоязычный сайт ”Хельсингин Саномат” закрывается. Archived 4 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine 5 October 2014.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.