Nordic Freelance Seminar 2024

Aika
08.11.2024 - 09.11.2024
Koko päivä

Paikka
Hotel Katajanokka

Registration has ended.

The Association of Freelance Journalists in Finland presents the yearly Nordic Freelance Seminar in Helsinki, Finland, 8–9 November 2024. The seminar starts 8 November at 10 am and closes 9 November in the evening.

The seminar venue is Clarion Collection Hotel Katajanokka (Merikasarminkatu 1 a, 00160 Helsinki), in the former premises of the Helsinki County Prison. The prison was in operation from 1837 to 2002, and the hotel opened in 2007 after extensive renovations.

The theme of the seminar is safety and security. What current safety and security topics should freelancers be aware of? What should they take into account in their own safety and wellbeing?

The seminar is sponsored by the Foundation for Journalistic Culture, the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Union of Journalists in Finland.

Seminar Fee

The seminar fee for freelance members of the Nordic unions of journalists is €150 (Vat 0%) and covers the program, lunch and Friday night dinner (with couple of drinks). The attendance fee will be reimbursed for cancellations received by 31 August. The maximum number of attendees is 100.

Accommodation

Participants should make their own accommodation arrangements, reservations and payments. Helsinki offers a wide range of accommodation suitable for different budgets.

Clarion Collection Hotel Katajanokka offers a discount code EVENTSHELSINKI. With discount code you receive 15 % discount on the daily flexible rate when booking through Strawberry Website. The promotional code is valid for all room categories, as long as rooms are available.

There are also several other accommodation options in the Katajanokka area in different price ranges, for example Eurohostel, Noli Studios and Scandic Grand Marina.

Registration

Registration has ended. Last day to register to the seminar was 15 October 2024.

Each participant should register in person. The invoice for the attendance fee shall be sent by email shortly after registration. You can register here.

Program

A program has been updated in October. You can find the program for the seminar here (updated 28 October 2024). Changes possible.

Featuring…

Johanna Aatsalo is a Finnish journalist and best-selling author of the non-fiction book Paljastus (Revelation, WSOY 2024). The book tells the story of her 14 year professional and legal ordeal against the Finnish Ski Association (including the former prime minister of Finland), due to their efforts to totally cancel her 1998 news story about doping in Finnish elite cross-country skiing and the complicity of the Association. It is also a book about personal safety and security: what happens when as a reporter you are under huge pressure and there is no latitude for error.

Hanne Aho has been the president of the Union of Journalists in Finland since 2015. With its 14 000 members, the Union of Journalists in Finland represents all Finnish media workers. Almost one fourth of the members in working life are freelancers, and advocacy for freelancers is a key part of the union’s mission.

Nina Trige Andersen is a journalist and historian and has worked freelance/self-employed since 2008. In 2009 she founded a freelance club at the Danish daily paper Information and has since helped start freelance clubs at other media outlets. A part of the freelance organizing is developing tools to map freelance production and the work and pay conditions of freelancers. When Nina is not busy with labour organizing, she researches and writes about labour organizing and labouring lives from the late 19th century to present, often with a focus on women’s labour, migrant labour and precarious labour.

Jeanette Björkqvist is an award-winning Swedish speaking Finnish freelance journalist, who in addition to her long career as a news reporter has recently written long investigative stories for Long Play, the Finnish broadcasting company Yle, Hufvudstadsbladet and other media. For Yle she has also made long and award-winning TV documentaries about drug users and people living under various forms of exploitation.

Mikhail Danilovich is a Russian journalist and the CEO of the online magazine Novaya Vkladka (The New Tab). As a freelance writer he lived in Perm until 2022 writing for regional and federal publications. Danilovich won the ”Redkollegiya” award for his investigation about the violation of confidentiality in diagnosing HIV-infected people in Perm Krai. After the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine he moved to Latvia and became the co-founder of the magazine Novaya Vkladka for which he writes documentary stories from Russian regions.

Jo Healey is the author of Trauma Reporting: A Journalist’s Guide to Covering Sensitive Stories. She has covered people’s highly sensitive stories for thirty years largely for BBC TV as a senior news journalist. She trains thousands of journalists and media staff worldwide, from the US, to Europe to Ukraine in how best to work with victims and survivors.  She’s delivered lectures and keynotes at Princeton, Boston, Oxford and London City Universities. She authored the UNESCO brief: Safety of Journalists Covering Trauma and Distress: Do No Harm. It’s been translated into seven languages. Last year she addressed the UN in Bangkok and the WHO in Geneva about her work.

Ilmari Hiltunen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences at Tampere University, Finland. His current research focuses on the harassment and intimidation of journalists, and their implications for the field of journalism. He has previously studied external interference in Finnish journalism, and populist counter-media and fake news in the Finnish media sphere.

Ole Dag Kvamme is the nordic coordinator at NJ Frilans, Norwegian Union of Journalists. He lives and works out of Kristiansand, southern Norway. He is an independent investigative freelance journalist since 2014, after working as a news reporter for the newspapers Fædrelandsvennen and Agderposten from 2005. Before that he was freelancing for national media since 1998.

Rosanna Marila is a Finnish freelance journalist who has written many in-depth portraits and survival stories. She has published a book about mental challenges in the modern working life called Työuupumuskirja (Docendo 2020). Marila teaches journalism at Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences as a visiting lecturer.

Marjo Näkki is a Finnish freelance journalist and non-fiction writer. She has worked as a correspondent in Russia, in the Baltic States and around the Baltic Sea. She has also hosted current affairs programmes for the Finnish broadcasting company Yle. Näkki has written three books on correspondence, international relations and security policy. She will talk about the differences of the coverage of the security and defence issues in different countries by the Baltic Sea.

Jana Peltzer is a psychologist and a freelance journalist based in Germany. She will discuss why safety involves not only physical but also mental health. After a brief overview of mental challenges freelance journalists have to deal with, Peltzer will introduce the Helpline, which she coordinates – a project of the investigative journalists association Netzwerk Recherche. The Helpline is an independent, anonymous and free telephone counselling service for German speaking journalists suffering from mental stress.

Jelena L. Petković is a Serbian investigative journalist and editor since 2003 (freelance since 2018). She has been working for many years on combating impunity for crimes against journalists and has over many years conducted research into the killing and disappearance of journalists in Kosovo. She also works as a trainer and consultant on issues such as safety of journalists, reporting on and combating hate speech, countering ethnic bias, as well as on ethical standards in reporting. Winner of several awards including two ”Laza Kostic” awards by the Journalists Association of Serbia.

Heidi Piiroinen has worked for more than 20 years in photojournalism in Finland and abroad. Her book Ohikuljetut – erään kerjäläisperheen tarina (The Invisibles – The Story of a Beggar Family, WSOY 2018), in collaboration with writer Kimmo Oksanen, won the State Award for Public Information in 2019. Piiroinen was awarded the Patricia Seppälä Foundation Photojournalist Award in 2020. She worked for Helsingin Sanomat for more than 15 years as a staff photographer. Since 2022 she has been working as a freelance photographer and visual artist.

Johannes Roviomaa is an award-winning Finnish freelance journalist, screenwriter, author and Visiting Researcher at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland. Roviomaa specializes in sustainability, e.g. climate change, Arctic and food security. His aim is to make Arctic research more understandable to a bigger audience in Finland and beyond. Roviomaa has written and co-produced Dear Arctic (2023), a documentary film about Arctic research. He has also co-authored non-fiction books about climate change. Roviomaa was awarded the title of the Freelance Journalist of the Year in Finland 2023.

David Sausdal holds a PhD in Criminology and is an Associate Professor in Social Anthropology at Lund University. As a researcher, Sausdal currently focuses on issues of organized crime, policing, and surveillance. He is Danish and an often-used expert in Nordic media, and his overall devotion to public scholarship shows, for example, in his current production of a podcast on ‘future crime’.

Petri Savolainen is the Head of Advocacy at the Union of Journalists in Finland. He is responsible for overseeing the union’s advocacy efforts and labour negotiations, particularly focusing now on improving working conditions and rights for freelancers and self-employed journalists.

Olli Seuri is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of the new Finnish media venture Uusi Juttu. Earlier he worked for Finnish Public Service Media Company Yle hosting and producing radio, TV, and podcast shows. He holds the Title of Docent in Journalism at University of Jyväskylä.

Virpi Suutari is an award-winning film maker known for her personal cinematic style on the boundary between fact and fiction. Her films have been shown in the major festivals such as IDFA, Locarno, CPH:Dox Leipzig, Vision du Réel and Gothenburg Film festival. The Idle Ones (2001) was nominated for the Best European Documentary (EFA award) and she has won several awards as the Best Nordic Documentary in Nordisk Panorama. Suutari is a three time recipient of the Jussi, the Finnish National Academy award. Her film Once Upon a Time in a Forest (premiere 28th March 2024) is an unconventional love song to forests, biodiversity and today’s radical, environmentally aware youth.

Tuukka Tuomasjukka is a board member at The Association of Freelance Journalists in Finland. He works as a freelance journalist, publishing editor and literary translator, and specializes in politics, culture and equality-related issues. Tuomasjukka also writes actively about Finnish media and publishing for trade union and industry publications, such as Journalisti, Lööppi and Suomen Lehdistö.

Elina Valtonen is the Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs, a fourth-term Member of Parliament and deputy chair of the National Coalition Party. In Parliament, she has served as vice chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and in the Defence Committee, Finance Committee and Grand Committee. Valtonen has chaired the Finnish delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and served as deputy member of the Finnish Delegation to the Council of Europe.

Antti Yrjönen is an award-winning photojournalist and documentary photographer based in Finland. Yrjönen often works in challenging environments, such as conflict zones. His work has received recognition, including multiple awards from the Finnish Association of Photojournalists and the Suomen Kuvalehti Journalist Award. His photographs have been published internationally in major publications, such as the BBC, Le Temps, Bloomberg, Condé Nast Traveller, Helsingin Sanomat and Suomen Kuvalehti. Yrjönen has documented Extinction Rebellion Finland (Elokapina) since 2019.

Nihkee Akka is the award-winning alter ego of spoken word poet Jonna Nummela. Her work features queer feminist humour and questioning social norms, and her performances are a hybrid of spoken word poetry, story telling and stand up comedy. Internationally Nihkee Akka is one of the best known Finnish spoken word poets of the new generation.

 

General inquiries: Anna-Sofia Nieminen, Executive Director of the Association of Freelance Journalists in Finland, yhdistys@freet.fi