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YLE Headquarters in Helsinki.
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Me...+for+racist+remarks+of+TV+guest/1135233790589
Helsingin Sanomat International Edition
Media watchdog reprimands public broadcaster for racist remarks of TV guest
February 4, 2008
Media watchdog reprimands public broadcaster for racist remarks of TV guest Ex-prosecutor made unflattering comments of appearance of Barack Obama's grandmother.
The Council for Mass Media in Finland, a watchdog organisation for journalistic ethics, has reprimanded the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) late Thursday for comments made by a regular guest on the Morning Television programme of the public service broadcaster's TV 1 network.
In a decision that came late Thursday, the council found that remarks made by retired prosecutor Ritva Santavuori about the appearance of Sarah Obama, the step-grandmother of US presidential hopeful Barack Obama had been disparaging of the woman's ethnic origin.
Ritva Santavuori
Santavuori is a regular guest in a weekly segment on the programme in which participants voice opinions on current events. During the live broadcast on January 11th, Santavuori commented on press photos of Sarah Obama that had been circulated around the world, saying that the elderly Kenyan woman was ugly, referring to her "residual Negroid features". In the programme, Santavuori pressed her own nose down with her finger to illustrate what she saw as Sarah Obama's resemblance to a gorilla.
A week later, following a flood of negative feedback, Santavuori expressed regret for any offence caused.
However, the council felt that the regrets expressed by Santavuori did not absolve YLE of responsibility for the content of the live broadcast. The council also did not feel that the fact that Santavuori was not an employee of YLE had any bearing on the matter.
"I take this as a very serious warning", said Leena Pakkanen, director of YLE Morning TV. However, she said that she did not intend to remove Santavuori from the programme.
"At this stage my journalistic discretion is that Santavuori can stay if she wants to. If I would have wanted her to go, she would have done so already on Friday morning."
The council's decision in the matter came exceptionally quickly. It is the first complaint to be handled under the leadership of Pekka Hyvärinen, who was named chairman of the council less than three weeks ago. While events during a live broadcast are unpredictable, Hyvärinen felt that broadcasters have greater responsibility for what regular guests say on a programme than for the opinions of a random studio guest.
"In [the programme] Santavuori is a person chosen by YLE who has been given access to the channel on a weekly basis."
Skara Brae,
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