---
title: "The Helsingin Sanomat convictions and Finglish | Matti H. Virtanen, Ian Mac Eochagáin | Negotiator 342"
titleOriginal: "Hesarin tuomiot Tankerot | Matti Virtanen Ian Mac Eochagáin | Neuvotttelija 342"
episodeNumber: "342"
guest: "Matti H. Virtanen, Ian Mac Eochagáin"
datePublished: 2025-07-07
duration: "57:30"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A"
originalLanguage: "fi"
topics: ["free_speech_society"]
subtitleMethod: "none"
provenance: "Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata, the neuvottelija.fi episode record and the publisher's own chapter marks, translated one for one; their spacing is irregular and matches the recording. No transcript is published here — the channel has no English caption track for this episode and the Finnish one is YouTube's automatic track. This is commentary by two active participants in Finnish public debate rather than reporting, and one of the guests is promoting his own book; the long-form write-up in the Neuvottelija AI editions states both."
fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/667-hesarin-tuomiot-tankerot-virtanen-mac-eochagin-neuvotttelija"
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep342-hesarin-tuomiot-ja-tankerot-virtanen-mac-eochagain/
---
# The Helsingin Sanomat convictions and Finglish | Matti H. Virtanen, Ian Mac Eochagáin | Negotiator 342

English subtitles are not available on this page. This is an episode summary, not a curated transcript.

## Chapters

- [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=0s) Matti H. Virtanen and a summer dog
- [00:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=44s) Ian Mac Eochagáin, and the themes of the conversation
- [01:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=95s) Ian's book: 101 Finglishisms, or why Finns write bad English
- [01:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=117s) Idioms and phrases: Finnish misunderstandings and Finglish
- [03:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=202s) Aurora Rämö's analysis of the appeal court judgment
- [03:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=228s) The authorities against Helsingin Sanomat, and an unreasonably long investigation
- [04:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=244s) Leaking security secrets, and the signals intelligence centre
- [08:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=488s) Kaius Niemi and an editor-in-chief's responsibility: who knew what
- [08:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=505s) A big story, and the chain of responsibility in preparing it
- [09:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=592s) Unpublished stories as incriminating evidence
- [11:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=686s) Wille Rydman, and private messages against the newspaper
- [12:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=779s) The Council for Mass Media, its power and the journalists' guidelines
- [14:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=877s) Helsingin Sanomat paid Tuomo Pietiläinen's legal costs
- [16:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=966s) An unreasonable situation: lawyers' bills on an employee
- [17:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=1059s) A legislative project, and new cost models
- [19:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=1151s) Iikka Kivi's attempt to shame Jussi Halla-aho over a Ukraine trip
- [20:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=1245s) Finns competing for the attention of English-language media
- [22:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=1335s) Defining the word fascist, and examples of Finglish
- [23:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=1417s) Finnish companies and invented idioms
- [25:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=1526s) AI and the quality of translation: the old clichés
- [27:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=1631s) The standard of English-language texts and websites
- [28:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=1712s) AI's role in translation: test results
- [30:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=1802s) Pronunciation is not the problem, writing is
- [31:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=1884s) Ahti Karjalainen's English and the origin of the word tankero
- [33:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=1986s) Multilingual websites and whether they are needed
- [34:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=2088s) Comparing Swedish and German command of English
- [36:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=2164s) English as a compulsory language: the language-policy elephant
- [37:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=2276s) Bilingualism and national identity
- [39:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=2350s) Integration, Russian-language schools and language policy
- [40:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=2435s) The state's role in the English-language bubble
- [42:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=2522s) Åland, Swedish-speaking Finns and language bubbles
- [43:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=2623s) Bilingual schools and the separateness of communities
- [44:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=2696s) Marit af Björkesten takes over
- [46:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=2783s) Yle's fees and cutting its cost base
- [47:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=2869s) The role of Yle's director-general, and funding
- [48:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=2887s) Yle's growing power and a 600 million budget
- [49:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=2972s) Bureaucracies and state companies against limited companies
- [50:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=3046s) The tobacco monopoly in Hungary got out of hand
- [52:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=3155s) The pharmacy monopoly and add-on sales
- [54:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A&t=3241s) Helsingin Sanomat and Yle do not separate public spending from the market economy

## Summary

A political commentary episode in two parts. The first covers the appeal court judgment against Helsingin Sanomat journalists in the signals intelligence case: the length of the investigation, the editor-in-chief's responsibility, unpublished stories used as evidence, and who pays the legal costs. The second half is language — Ian Mac Eochagáin's book on 101 Finglishisms, Finglish in corporate communication, the quality of machine translation, and English as a question of language policy. The closing section covers Yle's change of leadership and its budget.

## The judgment, read for its consequences

The interesting part is not the verdict but its machinery: an investigation long enough to
be a punishment in itself, unpublished material entering the evidence, and the question of
who pays the lawyers. That last one has the widest reach — if the costs land on an
individual journalist rather than the publisher, the calculation about what to investigate
changes before anything is written.

## Finglish as a policy question

The second half starts as a book about idioms and ends up somewhere larger: whether
English is a matter of competence or of language policy, what machine translation does to
the clichés, and why so much Finnish corporate English survives proofreading — the
mistakes are idiomatic rather than grammatical.


## Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: [Hesarin tuomiot Tankerot | Matti Virtanen Ian Mac Eochagáin | Neuvotttelija 342](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VmDSM4bR4A).
A Finnish edition of this episode is published at [www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/667-hesarin-tuomiot-tankerot-virtanen-mac-eochagin-neuvotttelija).

## In depth

The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode:
[English](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep342-hesarin-tuomiot-ja-tankerot-virtanen-mac-eochagain/) · [suomeksi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep342-hesarin-tuomiot-ja-tankerot-virtanen-mac-eochagain/).

---

Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — The Helsingin Sanomat convictions and Finglish | Matti H. Virtanen, Ian Mac Eochagáin | Negotiator 342, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep342-hesarin-tuomiot-ja-tankerot-virtanen-mac-eochagain/, 2025-07-07. For quotes include episode 342 and timestamp.