In Western democracies, criticism of media organisations, including public broadcasters, is a cornerstone of free speech and democracy.
However, the deliberate undermining of trust in traditional media has emerged as a defining strategy of radical populism, with parallels drawn to former US President Donald Trump's style of communicating.
In Finland, this tactic has been embraced by the Finns Party, with roots tracing back to the party's rise following their landmark 2011 election to become Finland's third largest party.
According to former Finns Party MP Kimmo Kivelä, the party leadership adopted a deliberate approach to target the Finnish public broadcaster Yle as a means to boost political support.
"It was essentially a programme declaration — that the Finns Party should make clear in their statements what they think about Yle," Kivelä stated.
Kivelä, now a pastor in Kiuruvesi, even suggests that differing attitudes towards Yle among party factions — those aligned Timo Soini versus Jussi Halla-aho — contributed to the party's eventual split in 2017.
Former party leader Soini represented what was then the Finns Party establishment, while Halla-aho took a more hardline stance against immigration.
"Yle was one factor that fractured the party," he explained, although opinions differ on the extent to which the broadcaster's role influenced the divide.
A history of targeting Yle
Kivelä's claims come at a time when Yle faces historic budget cuts, agreed upon by a parliamentary working group. These cuts, he argued, reflect a long-running continuity in Finnish media politics.
As a member of the party's parliamentary group between 2011 and 2015, Kivelä recalls discussions about Yle being a strategic target. While no formal decision was made, there was broad agreement about "seizing control of media discourse," with party members routinely criticising Yle's alleged bias.
Simon Elo, who led the Finns Party's youth wing during this period, recalled similar sentiments expressed in party meetings.
"The tone in the party executive was along the lines of, 'Do something about Yle,'" Elo said.
Initially, Elo saw these remarks as typical media criticism, but he later recognised the strategy as part of a broader effort to pressure and silence journalists.
"I didn't yet understand how targeting [journalists] could be used to intimidate and suppress," he explained.
Yle and the party split
As chair of Yle's Administrative Council from 2015 to 2019, Kivelä experienced these pressures firsthand.
He claimed he faced criticism from the Halla-aho faction for not leveraging his position to undermine Yle's journalism, particularly its reporting on immigration during the European refugee crisis in 2015.
"There was an expectation that I would act as a mole to harm Yle from within," Kivelä wrote in a Facebook post in 2024. He explained that the role of chair did not allow for editorial interference.
"The idea of 'reining in Yle' is absurd because the chair of the council simply doesn't have that kind of authority," he later elaborated.
Matias Turkkila, editor-in-chief of the Finns Party newspaper Suomen Uutiset, confirmed these frustrations, stating there was "a general desire" within the party for Kivelä to take a firmer stance against Yle.
"When a Finns Party member had been elected chair of the Administrative Council and held an exceptionally strong position there, we hoped that, in some way, our concerns would be conveyed to Yle," Turkkila told Yle, who regularly attended the party's parliamentary group meetings.
Disputes over Yle also played out publicly. During Kivelä's tenure as chair of Yle's Administrative Council, party members criticised individual Yle reports, including articles that featured asylum seekers without Finnish voices and coverage of racist remarks by local politicians.
Internal council meeting transcripts, later revealed by the magazine Seura, showed attempts to align Yle's journalism with the party's political agenda.
"The political landscape has changed, Yle needs to change," the proceedings transcript revealed an unknown politician saying at a council meeting.
Divided perspective
The Finns Party split in 2017, with Soini loyalists breaking away to form the Blue Reform party. While some, like Kivelä, viewed Yle's politicisation as a factor in the split, others downplay its significance.
"Even the party's old guard grumbled about media coverage — Timo Soini included," noted MP Juho Eerola, suggesting that discontent with Yle was common across factions.
However, Elo claimed that the conflict over Yle reflects a deeper ideological divide.
"For the Halla-aho faction, criticising Yle was about turning the media into a tool for their worldview and ideology," he argued.
Elo and others observed that some party members supported alternative media platforms, such as the far-right MV-lehti, further highlighting a shift in values around press freedom and democracy.
Erosion of media trust
The Finns Party's media strategy now manifests in the historic budget cuts imposed on Yle, despite legal protections preventing direct interference in editorial content.
Yet trust in Yle is waning, particularly among men aged 30–59, according to recent surveys.
Turkkila viewed this as part of a broader trend, with politicians bypassing legacy media institutions to communicate directly with voters via social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
"Politicians no longer need traditional media. They've created their own platforms," Turkkila said.
Turkkila said the relationship between politicians and traditional media is over since politicians can communicate freely and directly with their supporters and voters on social media. He cited politicians from across the political spectrum as examples of this phenomenon, such as Left Alliance chair Minja Koskela, Martin Paasi (NCP) and Tere Sammallahti (NCP).
Elo, however, warned that this shift signals a darker trajectory.
"It's part of the fragmentation of shared reality," he said, tying the phenomenon to global challenges facing liberal democracy.
"As we've seen in the United States, even someone who actively attempted a coup can be legally re-elected as president. How much more evidence do we need?" Elo concluded sombrely.