Saska Saarikoski

• Position: Arts and Culture Editor, Helsingin Sanomat
• Dates of Fellowship: Michaelmas-Hilary-Trinity
• Sponsor: Helsingin Sanomat Foundation

For the last five years I have worked as the Arts and Culture Editor of the Helsingin Sanomat, the leading Finnish daily newspaper. However, arts is just one of the fields of journalism I have encountered. I started working as a reporter at an early age and graduated from the Helsingin Sanomat School of Journalism when I was 23. After that I worked six years for alternative press and studied history at the Helsinki University. In 1994 I started working for the Suomen Kuvalehti, the leading Finnish news magazine. From there I moved on to the Helsingin Sanomat in 1998 to be a reporter for the newspaper's weekend pages.

My main interests in journalism have been politics, history, culture and media, but - fortunately - in this business you never know where you end up, so I have also found myself covering the Miss Finland beauty pageant as well as the Olympic Games (twice). As a columnist for the Helsingin Sanomat I have enjoyed taking on controversial issues, often causing great debate and uproar.

Lately I have been actively promoting media journalism both in the Helsingin Sanomat and on television in the Finnish Meet the Press show. I believe we have to introduce new ways of making journalism more transparent and easily accessible in order to retain the public trust and loyalty in the new digital environment.
 

Research project

Branding journalists - can it help newspapers in distress?

My research project at the Reuter's Institute concentrates on the branding of journalists. In the digital age the audience gets the news online, free of charge and in great overdoses. Thus the media has to find new ways to make itself useful and dear to the audience. One of those new ways may be to reinforce personal relationships between individual journalists and their audiences.

The idea of a brand journalist - or a star reporter - is certainly not new. As long as there have been newspapers some writers have attracted more attention than others. But this has mostly been a battle ground for individuals, not part of a newspaper's strategy. Now, maybe it should be.

In my research I will try to study different ways of branding journalists in Finland and Britain by interviewing editors and journalists in the two countries. What are the benefits of branding? What are the challenges? And what are the drawbacks? My aim is to give fresh ideas to the media organisations trying to find their way in the changing media environment as well as to the individuals - us hacks - wondering how to make it in this strange new world.