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"Officials have no right to judge journalists" A representative of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who disclosed some secret information about the EU to two Russian diplomats has sparked at investigation. It is very important for both sides, officials and journalists as well, to know where the line is between public and secret information. Christer Haglund, chief of Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Press Department thinks that journalists have the right to ask anything. "There is no question about that. Of course there are special restrictions, if we are talking about secret information but it's up to the officials to use common sense in discussions with journalists. They simply can't offer such information to the media because it could be dangerous to their country and its ability to negotiate. As Director of the Press Department at the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs I can tell that we try to be as open as possible. Most of the material, which we deal with in our ministry and another institutions, isn't secret or confidential. Sometimes it is a problem to organise face to face interviews with all journalists, because talking is really time consuming, but there are many ways to get information. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs organises quite regular press conferences with the three ministers who deal with foreign affairs. They are the Foreign Minister, the Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade and the Minister for Development Co-operation. I think the Internet plays a really important role in informing the public. People can get a lot of information directly from institutions via Internet." Politicians like to criticise journalists for their opinions. Mr. Haglund doesn't agree with such attitude. "It isn't up to me to judge journalists, it is up to the readers. If journalists write something that doesn't please us as official state representatives, it really doesn't matter. Of course, if they use incorrect information like facts and numbers, we can correct them but it isn't our job to judge journalists, absolutely not." Finland is going to hold the half-year EU presidency from July of next year. Journalists expect from each presidential country some improvements, which help them in their work. "Our ministry is in the midst of preparation right now and our goal is to serve the press as good and fast as possible. For accredited journalists we will offer from May next year an extra net which will provide journalists with instant information, just to mention one example of the efforts to serve the journalists well. Until then journalists can check our today's web site http://virtual.finland.fi. The first time we tried such a service was during last year's Clinton-Yeltsin summit, which was held in Helsinki. We have been positively surprised by how many journalists used those web sites. Now we expect a much higher number of users, because still more and more journalists work with the Internet," said Mr. Haglund. Daniel Domanovsky |
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