A rather successful media storm was stirred up last Friday over MP Sofia Virta’s (Greens) participation in the filming of the reality television series Erikoisjoukot.
Iltalehti was the first to report the matter, having received confirmation from its sources that the reason for the MP’s “confusing” absence from Tuesday to Friday was indeed her participation in the TV series.
Since then, Virta’s participation in the programme – which has featured at least six politicians in previous seasons, including Minister Mika Poutala (Christian Democrats) – has generated dozens of articles, follow-up pieces and follow-ups to the follow-ups. The number of social media comments is probably beyond guessing.
The ingredients were, of course, delicious. Virta had stated that she was absent for an acceptable personal reason, a definition that participation in a reality TV programme does not meet. Because of her absence, she was not there to press the voting button in the vote on repealing the ban on piglet castration, nor when the reform of alcohol legislation was voted on. The discussion around Virta’s parliamentary salary became, at the very least, confusing.
The ban on piglet castration was repealed by 110 votes to 60, and in the vote on alcohol legislation reform, the Green parliamentary group was split in any case, so the absence of the chair of an opposition party had no particular effect on the outcome of either vote.
In practice, Virta could also have left the filming at any time, had it been necessary. The consequences of her absence were therefore mostly symbolic.
A media storm, on the other hand, has its uses. The media naturally benefits from the storm it has created itself, because in summer news days are often… well, rather slow. Which, from the citizens’ point of view, is not a particularly bad thing: on slow news days, things tend to be fairly well in order.
In addition to the clicks raining down on the media, attention is also gained by politicians and commentators, who get to share their views on the various dimensions of the media storm of the moment, slowly dripping them out, of course. Who would try to use up such a convenient case all at once?
The target of the storm may also benefit from it – in this case, Sofia Virta herself. The Green Party chair has received a spike in attention that money cannot buy. She is being defended by a large number of people who point out that similar storms do not arise around all politicians, and that it is curious how controversies seem to flare up out of nowhere when the person in question is a young, or relatively young, female politician.
Nor is this the first time Virta has found herself in the eye of the storm. She has even said that she anticipated there might be criticism over her participation in Erikoisjoukot. In other words, a media storm.
I am certainly not claiming that the situation is easy or desirable for Sofia Virta – it must be extremely stressful. My educated guess is that if the feedback she has received were materialised into physical objects, handling it would require a small waste management facility.
Perhaps it can also be counted as useful to someone that they get to project their frustration onto a piece of the superego elected by the nation.
For me, as the editor-in-chief of what is, as far as we know, Finland’s newest local media outlet, the benefit was that I got to take a swipe at all parties involved – especially the large and traditional media houses – and position Uusi kuopiolainen as a publication that pops the media-storm bubble with a couple of critical pinpricks.
Hopefully as many large media organisations as possible, or at least some politician, will get offended by this. A media storm would, after all, come in handy for a new local media outlet.
In the absence of a media storm (so far), we thank you for your interest in Uusi kuopiolainen’s first opinion piece. We would be happy to hear what you thought of this and of Uk’s other first articles.