Episode 376 · 2026-03-16 · 01:02:12 · Original in Finnish
Yle on the left, social media on the right | Jarkko Tontti, Heikki Pursiainen | Negotiator 376
Originally published as “YLE vasemmalla Some oikealla | Jarkko Tontti Heikki Pursiainen | Neuvottelija 376”
A media analysis episode with two mirrored halves. Heikki Pursiainen presents his informal count of the political distribution of Yle's external columnists, and Jarkko Tontti places the finding in a wider frame; then the same scrutiny is turned on Sitra's report claiming a right-wing skew in social media, including a methodological critique of it. The connecting question is gatekeeping power — what difference it makes whether the choice is made by an editor or by an algorithm. The closing section covers Yle's 570 million euro budget and public-good theory.
Core theses
- The count of Yle's external columnists is informal and the episode says so, which is what makes the same standard applicable to the Sitra report it then criticises.
- The real question is not which direction a medium leans but who holds the gate — an editor or an algorithm — and what each kind of gatekeeping is accountable to.
- Public-good theory is the strongest available argument for public broadcasting, and it does not automatically justify the current scale.
- Both guests are participants in Finnish public debate rather than outside observers of it.
Watch and listen
Key moments
- 00:00 — The versifying doctors: Jarkko Tontti and Heikki Pursiainen
- 01:14 — Pursiainen's analysis of Yle's external columnists
- 02:15 — Results: the left over-represented in Yle's economic journalism
- 03:00 — Tontti compares the finding to the emperor's new clothes
- 04:11 — Limits and caveats in interpreting the count
- 05:17 — Universities as a recruiting source, and political skew
- 06:19 — Pursiainen's background at Libera, and dress codes
- 06:46 — The nature of dividends, and the recurring misunderstanding in the media
- 08:29 — Why dividends are paid, explained from economics
- 09:40 — The competence of Finnish economic media under criticism
- 11:28 — Nils Ittonen at Sanoma's helm and the 14.5-point syndicated loan
- 13:11 — The long march through the institutions and the left-leaning university
- 14:27 — The friendly interview as a news format
- 15:42 — What Yle's task in opinion journalism should be
- 17:24 — Pursiainen on Yle commenting on Trump's tariffs
- 18:45 — Taxpayers fund a skewed media apparatus
- 19:23 — AI as a tool for analysing political skew
- 21:57 — Assessing Sitra's report on a right-wing skew in social media
- 23:22 — Methodological weaknesses in the Sitra study
- 25:10 — Romania's election and Russian information warfare conflated
- 26:27 — Double standards in criticising algorithms and journalists
- 29:07 — German and Swedish research on journalists' party preferences
- 30:14 — Can a party preference tell you anything about a journalist's quality
- 32:26 — Yle's special position as a state-funded dominant actor
- 33:54 — Comparing Finland's media landscape with other countries
- 35:43 — Finland has no non-left national medium
- 36:58 — The barber analogy for Yle competing with private media
- 40:23 — Yle's 570 million euros and 2,500 employees
- 41:13 — Technological change and the competitiveness of a small studio
- 43:33 — Public-good theory and the case for Yle's existence
- 47:22 — Maslow's hierarchy and the tasks of the state
- 48:30 — NPR and PBS in the United States as a comparison
- 50:25 — Linear television disappearing with a generation
- 52:36 — How public support for journalism is best organised
- 54:45 — Legacy media leaving facts unreported
- 56:43 — LinkedIn as a new agora for open debate
- 59:19 — Democracy strengthened when everyone has a voice
- 1:01:28 — Inner Circle: the Libera years
Summary
A media analysis episode with two mirrored halves. Heikki Pursiainen presents his informal count of the political distribution of Yle’s external columnists, and Jarkko Tontti places the finding in a wider frame; then the same scrutiny is turned on Sitra’s report claiming a right-wing skew in social media, including a methodological critique of it. The connecting question is gatekeeping power — what difference it makes whether the choice is made by an editor or by an algorithm. The closing section covers Yle’s 570 million euro budget and public-good theory.
Two halves that test each other
The structure is what makes this episode usable. The first half presents a count of Yle’s external columnists by political leaning; the second turns the same methodological scrutiny on Sitra’s report claiming a right-wing skew in social media. Because the guests concede the limits of their own count, the critique of Sitra’s method is held to the same standard rather than applied only to the other side.
The question underneath
Neither half settles which way Finnish media leans. What both halves are really about is gatekeeping: whether it matters that the choice is made by an editor who can be named or by an algorithm that cannot, and what each is accountable to.
Scale and justification
The closing section moves from bias to size — Yle’s 570 million euro budget and roughly 2,500 employees — and to public-good theory, which is the strongest argument available for public broadcasting and does not by itself settle the question of scale.
Watch
The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: YLE vasemmalla Some oikealla | Jarkko Tontti Heikki Pursiainen | Neuvottelija 376. A Finnish edition of this episode is published at www.neuvottelija.fi.
In depth
The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode: English · suomeksi.
Go deeper
People and topics
Guests: Jarkko Tontti, Heikki Pursiainen