On October 1 a new type of media cooperation was launched. Six Finnish newspaper publishers, responsible for a total of twelve regional newspapers have joined forces to be able to give their readers high quality national and international news. The new cooperation is called Lännen Media (Western Media).
A joint national newsroom with 40 journalists scattered in 13 towns from Turku in the south to Lapland in the north will produce national and international news and backgrounds 24/7, online content, background articles on current events, weekend material and daily theme pages for all the newspapers in the network. Ten of the journalists will be based in Helsinki.
“Our goal is to do something new and unique, not to do the same old in a more efficient way,” Editor-in-Chief of Lännen Media Matti Posio says to BarentsObserver. “The readers demand more and more varied content of high quality, and this cooperation will provide readers with quality national and international content, while also giving the newspapers the opportunity to focus more on producing local content.”
“The local and regional news will still be the basis for the newspapers in the network,” Posio says, “but people who live in the periphery should also have national and international news.”
Cooperation can give voices from the north better possibilities to be heard, both on a national and even an international lever.
The twelve newspapers’ audience combined count for nearly 1.3 million readers. When digital media are taken into account, the number grows to nearly 2 million.
The regional newspapers have already gained a lot from the cooperation in Lännen Media, according to Editor-in-chief of the newspaper Kaleva in Oulu, Markku Mantila. “Our common newsroom has got a very nice start and supports in a great way the news service Kaleva has,” he says to BarentsObserver. “I look forward to December, when the remaining parts of the Western Media news service start to operate properly. I have full confidence in Western Media.”
The founding newspapers of Lännen Media include Kaleva (Oulu), Lapin Kansa (Rovaniemi), Pohjolan Sanomat (Kemi), Aamulehti (Tampere), Satakunnan Kansa (Pori), Kainuun Sanomat (Kajaani), Ilkka (Seinäjoki), Pohjalainen (Vaasa), Hämeen Sanomat (Hämeenlinna) and its affiliate Forssan Lehti (Forssa), Turun Sanomat (Turku) and Keskipohjanmaa (Kokkola).
