The Union of Finnish reporters awarded distinguished Finnish journalists in Helsinki on Thursday evening. Doctor of Theology Juha Molari was granted the Freedom of Speech Prize, and Editor-in-Chief B.Sc. (Biology) Panu Huuhtanen and Investigative Journalist M.Sc. (Econ.) Tiina Keskimäki, both from Reformi-Studio 2.0 YouTube channel, were nominated the Rule of Law Award.
Molari has been groundbreaking and courageous scholar, journalist and blogger, defending freedom of speech in the Finnish society. The Board of the Union of Finnish reporters notified that Dr. Molari has sacrifized and endangered his own well-being, health and life, in order to serve the higher principle of freedom of speech, in revealing threats of the Finnish society, such as corruption, terrorism and censorship.
B. Sc. Huuhtanen and M. Sc. Keskimäki were nominated for their groundbreaking legal journalism from courtrooms, making court processes more transparent for Finns and strenghtening the Finnish rule of law. Huuhtanen and Keskimäki invented a new type of active Twitter-tracking of court hearings, writing thousands of tweets from one court process alone, for hundreds of thousands of followers, and also publishing audio tapes of hearings, and analyzing the ongoing court processes. Huuhtanen and Keskimäki were able to shed brighter light on the Finnish legal system, which prooved to be a challenge for the rule of law itself.
