Kaijaleena Runsten

• Time of Fellowship: Michaelmas, Hilary and Trinity 2011–2012
• Sponsor: The Helsingin Sanomat Foundation

I have been a journalist for 12 years in the Finnish newspaper, Maaseudun Tulevaisuus (MT), which has the second biggest daily readership in our country. MT specializes in agriculture, forestry and regional economy and policy. I have served on several different journalist posts, including as EU correspondent in Brussels, the editorial journalist and the sub-editor for online news. Before my Fellowship, I was leading the renewal project of the MT web portal. The new pages were launched in September.

Before my career as a journalist, I worked on a research project on EU legislation concerning the market organizations and cooperatives of farmers. Previously I worked in communications and marketing for several years. The longest employment was with commercial weather services at FMI, Finnish Meteorological Institute.

Two small but important road signs towards journalism during these early years were working as the editor of the FMI internal news bulletin and the production of a radio program on local and organic food together with a Finnish chef. The series was delivered via a network of small commercial radio stations.

I have a M.Sc. degree in agriculture from the University of Helsinki, majoring in marketing and minors in agricultural policy and extension. In recent years, I have taken several shorter courses on e-communication and online journalism. I have been a non-graduate student in the Global Media and Communication program at the University of Helsinki since Autumn 2010.

Research project: 

The global trade negotiations in news; do journalists trust NGOs too much as sources of information? (Working title)

My project deals with the reporting around the WTO Doha round: why is there little interest in the media towards trade rules other than the WTO ministerial meetings and demonstrations around them? The aim is to find out how much journalists trust non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as their sources in trying to understand the complexity of trade policy. One of the key questions in the project is whether some NGOs are regarded more reliable than the others and if so, does it cause a risk to the objectivity of the news.