Jarkko Jokelainen

Jarkko Jokelainen is a journalist working for Helsingin Sanomat, the biggest daily newspaper in the Nordic countries. Currently he writes for the Arts and Culture pages but during his 20 year stint at the paper he has had an opportunity to work at various departments.

Recently he was the producer for Business on Sunday pages and previously he has been covering domestic and city news as well as working in the main news desk and writing for the weekly supplement Nyt. This has meant a wide variety of assignments for different outlets: newspaper, online edition, tv news and radio station.

At Arts and Culture he is mainly, but not only, covering popular music and interviewing bona-fide rock stars (Bruce Springsteen, Gene Simmons, every member of the Ramones, to name a few) as well as upcoming local talent. He also writes news articles, reviews and columns. Hot topics in 2013 have been the rise of music streaming services and the festival war in the Nordics, for instance.

Jarkko Jokelainen was born in Salo, Finland in 1970 and studied journalism and mass communication at the University of Tampere. His career got an early start when he published his first article at the age of 13. Before joining Helsingin Sanomat in 1993 he published his own magazine. In 1994 to 1995 he also worked for Finnish-American newspaper New Yorkin Uutiset in New York.