---
title: "The Wiseguys Club and the media rage | Ivan Puopolo | Negotiator 204"
summary: "Ivan Puopolo joins Sami Miettinen in July 2023, in the middle of the press storm that followed the new right-wing government taking office. This is the Weekly Wiseguys club’s own backstory: why the programme started, whether its format survives now that its guests sit in government, and what separates a video column from news journalism. The weightiest section asks whether a columnist may be criticised by name — and this write-up separates the media-ethics argument in it from what the panel leaves out. The transcript is YouTube auto-captioning, which limits quotation; that is disclosed."
datePublished: 2023-07-27
dateModified: 2023-07-27
originalLang: en
section: society
sections: ["society","satire"]
authors: ["Sami Miettinen"]
tags: ["Neuvottelija","EP204","Viikon viisastelu","Mediakritiikki","Sananvapaus","Journalistin ohjeet","Maalittaminen","Cancel-kulttuuri","Ivan Puopolo"]
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep204-viisasteluklubi-ja-mediaraivo-ivan-puopolo/
---
# The Wiseguys Club and the media rage | Ivan Puopolo | Negotiator 204

# The Wiseguys Club and the media rage | Ivan Puopolo | Negotiator 204

> **Summary:**
> Ivan Puopolo joins Sami Miettinen in July 2023, in the middle of the press storm that followed the new right-wing government taking office. This is the Weekly Wiseguys club’s own backstory: why the programme started, whether its format survives now that its guests sit in government, and what separates a video column from news journalism. The weightiest section asks whether a columnist may be criticised by name — and this write-up separates the media-ethics argument in it from what the panel leaves out. The transcript is YouTube auto-captioning, which limits quotation; that is disclosed.

## A note on reading this, and on the source

This episode was recorded on **27 July 2023**, in the middle of the press storm that followed
Petteri Orpo's government taking office. It is short — nineteen minutes — and it is **the
Weekly Wiseguys Club's own backstory**: the person who makes the programme explains why it
exists and on what rules it operates.

Two caveats before the content.

**The source.** There is no publisher's own caption track for this episode, so this write-up
rests on YouTube's automatic captioning. It is clearly poorer than in the other episodes in
this series: no punctuation, proper nouns come out wrong, and some sentences break off. Names
have been corrected, but **no verbatim quotations are used here** except where the same
thought recurs several times in the episode.

**An interested party.** The guest makes the programme and the host is its regular guest. This
is an explanation of one's own activity, not an outside assessment of it.

## 1. Why the programme exists

Puopolo's own account is direct and unvarnished: the programme was founded as a
**counterweight** to what he calls the primness of traditional media. The line-up formed by
itself — Tere Sammallahti as the first guest, then others, and out of that a settled group.

The first interesting question is the one the host asks immediately: **does the format survive
now that the programme's regular guests sit in government?** The answer is more honest than it
needed to be:

- Puopolo concedes that **politician guests are inevitably advocates for the government**,
  because they are politicians.
- He places himself "in between" and says he leans slightly right — but regards it as his job
  to point out the right's foolishness too, and immediately gives an example: the National
  Coalition's aim of maintaining the size of the public sector while financing it by cutting
  taxes and relying on dynamic effects.

That the programme's maker names his own side's weakest point unprompted is the best single
indication that this is not simply a party channel.

## 2. The four-quadrant map that breaks

A short but sharp section. Puopolo and Miettinen notice that the Finnish political map —
economic right/left and national-conservative/green-liberal — **places neither of them
anywhere.** Both call themselves liberals, but the axes would put them in the
national-conservative corner.

From this comes a claim that recurs later in this series and is made here for the first time:
**authoritarianism ought to be measured separately**, and in their view it does not lean
unambiguously right. The reasoning is the transfer of economic decision-making away from the
individual through taxation — and they say out loud that **there are restrictions on the right
too**.

The argument is contestable and it is a position. Its value is that it makes the measurement
visible: what counts as authoritarian decides the result.

## 3. Experience and shared reality

The passage on gender diversity is formulated more precisely here than in many later episodes,
and it is worth taking as stated:

> **Anyone may experience themselves however they wish, and may say so.** But the same
> experience cannot be *required* of others, because others have the same right to their own.
> What can be jointly required is only an objectively shared reality.

This is a distinction between subjective experience and public obligation. It can be answered —
for instance, that legal recognition is not the same as believing another person's experience,
and that norms of courtesy do not require a metaphysical commitment — but no answer appears in
the episode, because nobody at the table makes it.

The section also contains a criticism of identity politics framed generally: a person should
not be reduced to their group characteristics, whatever the group. The argument is symmetrical,
and that is its strength.

## 4. The hardest section: may a columnist be criticised by name?

This is the weightiest and most sensitive part of the episode, and it needs care.

**The background**, as far as it can be read from the episode: an MP had publicly commented on
a newspaper columnist's social media content, and a broad media reaction followed in which the
matter was framed as the targeting of a young woman.

### The argument the panel makes

Puopolo's claim is **about position**, and it can be stated without reference to any person:

> A columnist at a national newspaper holds an influential position — in his view, in some
> respects more influential than a first-term MP. The situation cannot therefore be described
> as one-directional power exercised downwards. **A publicly expressed opinion may be publicly
> answered**, and criticism of published content belongs in public debate.

This is a standard question of media ethics and it can be answered with arguments. It requires
no position on the person or on her content, and this write-up takes none.

### What the panel does not address

I mark this because the episode does not, and because without it the section is one-sided:

1. **Formal influence is not the same as consequences.** Whether a reaction lands on one
   individual does not depend on who has the larger readership, but on how many people pick it
   up and in what register.
2. **An MP's position is special.** The same act reads differently when the actor holds public
   office. The panel applies this principle elsewhere — it demands neutrality of officials —
   but not here.
3. **Criticism of content and discussion of a person are not the same thing**, and that line is
   precisely what the dispute was about.

The panel does draw its own line elsewhere, and it is consistent: it criticises a **strong
false claim** that there were several ministers with Nazi backgrounds in the government.
Puopolo calls the claim false and exceptionally grave — close to the worst thing that can be
said of a person. That is worth marking, because it shows the same requirement — **strong
claims must be refutable** — being applied in both directions.

Readers should know one thing about the background that the episode does not separate out: the
summer 2023 dispute concerned one minister's earlier remarks, which is a different matter from
a claim about "ministers with Nazi backgrounds". The panel disputes the latter, not the former.

## 5. Private role, professional role, and what an employer should say

The most constructive section, and it is independent of the parties to the dispute.

Puopolo's and Miettinen's shared position is that **an opinion expressed in private life is
not the employer's business**, and that the right response to a storm would be, from the
employer: *this does not concern us, you said it on your own social media, your job is safe.*

Two international cases are used as comparisons. They are worth reading precisely: in both,
public judgement preceded the legal outcome, and in both the legal outcome was later favourable
to the individual — **but the professional damage had already been done.** That is the point of
the section, and it requires no view on the cases themselves.

From this comes a wish of Miettinen's that applies to him too: when an attack arrives from a
different circle than the one in which the thing was said, **a counterweight should arrive
quickly** — and the target should not have to carry it alone.

### The press as mentor

The sharpest observation in the section is not about the individual case:

> When the whole media field lines up to **instruct MPs on how they should behave**, it takes
> on a role that belongs to a party's own communications staff or adviser.

And the justification attached is democratic rather than political: **a voter has the right to
know how their representative behaves.** If the behaviour is smoothed away before it becomes
visible, the voter loses the information on which the choice is made.

It is a good argument, and it holds regardless of whose behaviour is at issue.

## 6. The weight of the platform — where the panel concedes a difference

Here the episode does something you would not expect of it: **it concedes that it is not the
equal of the news media.**

Miettinen puts the question directly: is the same thing said on X, in a video column, or in a
national newspaper's lead feature the same thing? The answer has three parts and it is honest:

1. **Institutional position carries weight.** The same claim weighs more in a large newspaper.
2. **Commitment carries weight.** A newspaper is bound by the Guidelines for Journalists. A
   YouTube channel is not — and both of them say so.
3. **The genre is different.** Miettinen names his own output a **video column**: the facts
   must be right, but exaggeration, humour and sharpening belong to the form — and that is
   exactly what separates it from news journalism.

This is an important piece of self-definition for the series, and it should be read alongside
what the programme demands of others in other episodes. **They do not hold themselves to the
news media's standard — and they say so.**

What the section leaves open is the question nobody asks: if a video column may exaggerate,
what follows when its subject is a private individual rather than an institution?

## 7. Context and reading after the fact

The closing theme is general and well put: **old text gets read by today's norms, with context
and intent cut away.**

The examples are anonymous message-board writing from the late 2000s and an international case
in which an award bearing a children's author's name was renamed decades after her death, over
language in books set in the 1800s. Puopolo's question is rhetorical but apt: should the author
have anticipated the norms of the 2020s?

And then the cleverest observation in the episode, because it identifies an asymmetry:

> **Context matters when it is needed** — and is forgotten when it would favour the other side.

It is offered as criticism of the left. The same observation applies to anyone, and that is
where its value lies.

## Claims presented as claims

- The assessment of a columnist's influence relative to a first-term MP's.
- The claim that authoritarianism leans left in Finland.
- Descriptions of individual international cancellation cases and their consequences.
- Assessments of what the press is seeking through its reactions.
- The characterisation of the programme's standing based on viewer feedback.

## What survives the episode

1. **The programme defines itself as a video column rather than news journalism** — and
   concedes that a newspaper bound by the Guidelines for Journalists carries a different
   responsibility. That is the single most important sentence in it for this series.
2. **A voter has the right to know how their representative behaves.** The argument about the
   press as mentor to politicians is democratic, not party-political.
3. **A strong claim must be refutable** — and the panel demands that even when the claim is
   aimed at its own side.
4. **Context is remembered selectively.** The observation is made about the other side, and it
   is useful precisely because it applies to everyone.

## How the episode runs

- **00:00** — How the Weekly Wiseguys Club started
- **01:35** — Does the format survive a right-wing government?
- **03:01** — Culture war in Finland, and defending liberalism
- **04:50** — Is gender diversity a liberal question?
- **06:30** — Public opinions and identity
- **09:14** — Professional, private and social-media roles
- **11:25** — Is the press reaction proportionate?
- **13:15** — The press coaching politicians
- **14:50** — Does the weight of the outlet matter?
- **15:59** — Anonymous writing, context and intent
- **17:20** — A link to the week's episode
- **17:54** — Viewer feedback
- **18:30** — A platinum episode trailer