"Embrace change and trust that the next story is just around the corner"
Based in Los Angeles Johanna Juntunen is the California correspondent for Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, working for world news and sports. YLE operates four national TV channels, six radio channels, and an online news channel yle.fi. As a freelance reporter, Johanna also contributes to consumer tech magazine Tekniikan Maailma writing science articles and product reviews. Additionally, she works as a columnist for a local newspaper in Central-Ostrobothnia where she is from. Johanna has written celebrity profiles, travel, food, and human-interest stories to publications worldwide, such as Metro International with 17.6 million daily readers. She reported for and hosted the entertainment TV show Hollywood Xpress for YLE 2.
What is it like for a journalist from Finland - your homeland - to make the decision to leave her family and begin a career as a foreign correspondent in the US?
I had been traveling all over the world already as a student, reporting even from Seychelles and United Arab Emirates. A day after graduating from the University of Jyvaskyla in speech communication and political sciences, I was on the plane heading to Los Angeles. The decision to leave Finland kept brewing throughout my early twenties as the country felt too small and uneventful for new opportunities. And too cold and dark during the winter months! I had been working for YLE’s regional station, Radio Central Finland, as a student and continued reporting from Los Angeles on current affairs, entertainment, and sports - mostly NHL. I also wanted to study screenwriting in the movie capital of the world and took classes at UCLA Extension. If things did not work out, nothing stopped me from going back home, which was the rationalization of my career move. I felt home here after a week and never looked back. The biggest drawback is being far from your family and friends.
From the perspective of a foreign correspondent, what are the biggest challenges in reporting the news from the US?
In Finland, people both love and hate the US. They have strong opinions of this country and think they know more than they actually do. But it is not that simple. How people think and what they value in the US does not only depend on their political views, but it changes depending on in which state, city, town, or a rural area the person lives. The socio-economic divide is so wide that it is hard to comprehend for people in another country with a different social policy system. That is important to remember in my reporting. I do not always have the luxury to go in depth of everything in news articles, but as a contributor to the weekly current affairs radio program (MPA) I can go behind the scenes, such as in my interview of an Afghan veteran regarding the withdrawal from the war in Afghanistan.
Johanna Juntunen
What type of news reports is your audience in Finland most interested in?
The US is a trailblazer in everything, good and bad, so other countries pay close attention to what happens in here because the same will happen elsewhere as well, one way or another, or at least it influences life in other countries. So, it is not surprising that reports on presidential elections, especially in the past few years, get a huge interest. There is so much drama in US politics in general from conspiracy theories to Rudy Giuliani that it is entertaining everywhere – not that the politicians necessarily aim at that. Audiences also want to hear from regular people on key issues which brings a human-interest aspect to news stories elevating them beyond 'news.’ Natural catastrophes such as California wildfires and the drought hook people even though they do not all agree on the causes of the climate change. People in Finland are sports fanatics, both as following sports and doing it. Sports news is often the highlight of the evening news broadcast, especially when there are reports on NHL hockey, soccer, and motorsports.
How do you select the news you report back to your country?
Besides being assigned to work on specific news and science stories, I think about the relevance of the subject matter to the Finnish audience but also the local significance, such as vaccination mandates. Immigration issues are very heated in Europe right now, so I keep a close eye on what happens on the southern border of the US and with immigration policy. Earlier this year I traveled to El Salvador to report on illegal immigration and more recently reported from the new border wall in Arizona that has partially broken due to monsoon rains in the summer. Increasingly, my own interests guide what I pitch. My focus as a lifelong birder and nature lover has shifted to climate change and environmental issues. The benefit of reporting from politics to sports, and from entertainment to science & technology is that I can write articles that have high intrinsic value for me and get compensated. One such example is “Banding hummingbirds in Arizona” which appears in Linnut-magazine by BirdLife Finland.
What has changed the most during the years you’ve been a foreign correspondent in the US?
The atmosphere in the country has changed along the years from openness to suspicion. Before, when people saw a camera and a reporter with a microphone on the street or other public place, they wanted to give an interview and their opinions regardless of the subject matter. They wanted to participate and be in the news in another country. It was too easy to get interviews from regular people! During the past few years, it has gotten harder. People very often decline the interview and are suspicious of the purpose of it and ask where they will be seen. This is happening partly because of social media with its fake news sowing seeds of distrust in real journalists, toxic political environment, political correctness taken to extremes, and wide divisions between people. It is a pity that people are afraid to speak openly nowadays, especially about political issues.
During your 25 years as a foreign journalist in the US, what has been your most challenging experience?
Getting answers to interview requests takes longer when you are a reporter from a small country like Finland. The America-centric focus in the US does not help, and sometimes people do not respond at all. There are some exceptions with many academic institutions that understand the value of reporting on their scientists and research no matter where it happens. But especially in professional sports foreign correspondents are treated with the least importance compared even to reporters from small-town US newspapers. The 10-hour time difference to Finland does not help, especially when doing live reports for morning news or working with an editor on next day’s news article. The only solution is to work on two time zones at the same time.
Is working as a foreign journalist in the US harder than being a journalist in your own country?
The challenges are different. Journalists are not viewed in Finland the same way than in the US. In that regard, it is or was easier to get respect as a professional here. But just the difference in size between the countries is huge not to mention the size of Los Angeles itself. Twice as many people (over ten million) live in L.A. County than in the whole country of Finland (5,5 million)! Everything takes longer here because of distance, traffic, and the number of reporters chasing the same interview. The producers do not always understand that and want the article or segment now. At least there are always interesting stories to report on in every front. There just is not enough time!
What advice would you like to give to those who aspire to work in the US as foreign journalists?
Be flexible and do not assume that what you are planning to do will happen exactly the way you envisioned it. Be curious and do your research. Embrace change and trust that the next story is just around the corner. Life can be stressful for a freelance journalist especially if you are not paid according to where you live, so get comfortable living in uncertainty. Develop a wide range of interests and do not get stuck on just one area as everything is connected in one way or another. A large knowledge base helps makeing connections and develop trust in interviewees, and of course in connecting all the dots in your reports.
