In Finland there are 233 newspapers. None of which are owned by the government or by a political party. They all fall under the umbrella of the Finnish Newspapers Association, which is tasked with strengthening the social significance of newspapers in people’s daily lives. In short, it is there to ensure that the media is educating the masses.

The News Association works hard to help society raise children who think; children who grow up into adults who actually sit down, read, reflect and decide, as opposed to parroting away what they are told.

How does it do this? For starters, Finnish schools can order newspapers – any of the 233 – every day, for free, and students are encouraged to read them.

Next, the Newspapers Association provides journalism projects, worksheets and activities to schools so that Finnish teachers – who have more of a freehand in creating a class syllabus – can integrate media analysis in their lessons.

These students’ tasks revolve around all sorts of news from local politics, to sports, to foreign news, and consequently Finnish students are all the time discussing current events and trained to read the news with a critical mind.

Thirdly, in the city of Tampere there is a media school for primary and secondary students. Schools from all over Finland can take groups and organise class workshops on journalism in this media school. What is the end result of all this educational investment?

Well, children learn to respect the role of a journalist and appreciate the hard work behind a story, and in the process appreciate the need for challenging and investigating the country’s authorities. As Timothy Snyder in his book On Tyranny says, “the individual who investigates is also the citizen who builds”.

Also, the Finnish media, because it knows it has an intelligent readership/audience, ups the ante all the time and the ethical standards are high and keep getting higher, for the simple reason that any media which does not have high principles does not survive.

We must make evidence relevant again – and that can only happen by shutting down political media and by raising children with a critical mind

I have never been to Finland, although increasingly the land is beckoning, and I got to know all this through teacher-training event by Learning Scoop, a Finnish education development company, organised by St Joseph School, Paola. Part of the workshop – which is why I dropped by – focused on how Finnish media had a crucial role in the development of the education system.

It is easy to understand why, according to the United Nations, Finland is the happiest country in the world. Because you see, every country is the product of its schools.

Our schools are, sadly, scared of news. I don’t blame them: half of our media are owned by political parties. Consequently children are raised in a dual environment: the one at school where neutrality is lauded, and the one at home were they only listen to what one political party has to say.

What kind of adults does this mould us into? There’s two types:

– the partisan type who blindly follow shamanistic incantation and whatever their political party says goes even if it is presenting inventions and lies as if they were fact; and

– the silent type whose mantra is ‘ma rridx niċċappas’ (I don’t want to be seen to take sides), so they don’t voice their criticism, often opting to living in a bubble.

The few thousands who are discerning, are looked upon as either traitors or cuckoo. I was recently talking to a group of authors, who by nature have the talent to be articulate and to reflect society’s ailments with the voice of their pen (check out British and Italian authors – they’re all over Twitter challenging the status quo). Most claimed to prefer being the silent type because “Malta is small” and “whatever you say can affect your job”.

This means that we are happy to live in a world of slogans, creative myths and a drumbeat of propaganda that appeals to people’s emotions before we have the time to say ‘hang on, this does not make sense’. Scandals are unearthed but no one really cares because to our unanalytical mind, it’s infotainment.

News is a reality show, where we sit down with popcorn in hand and watch the unfolding of one saga after another. Then we switch off, and don’t think about it anymore. It’s like we’ve fallen into the collective trance described in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, where firemen find and burn books while most citizens watch interactive television (so visionary of Bradbury in 1953).

This is the uneducating of the masses, the dumbing down, the keeping everyone ignorant, the eliminating of vocabulary from people’s brains so that it’s easier for truth to become oracular instead of factual.

It’s an odd thing to ask for, but we must make evidence relevant again – and that can only happen by shutting down political media and by raising children with a critical mind. Then the education revolution can truly begin.

It’s either that, or we move to Finland.

krischetcuti@gmail.com
twitter: @krischetcuti

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