By Kaarlo Kulmanen
Susanna Reinboth is one with the papers and that has led to her to some of the biggest cases in Finnish crime reporting.
Susanna Reinboth is fluent in law and that’s why she makes so many complaints. Photo: Helsingin Sanomat.
In 2013 the Finnish society had a permanent dent in trust due to an expose and recently begun investigation against the chief of Helsinki’s Police narcotics department, Jari Aarnio.
It all started in late 2012 when Nelonen news (Channel 4’s news desk) merged with the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. Crime- and court reporter Susanna Reinboth started at her new work place, catching up with her new colleague Minna Passi. During these cafeteria catch-up’s about the recent happenings in the Finnish underworld, they noticed that they both had received multiple tips about the narcotics department of Helsinki’s Police and especially about Aarnio. None of the tips they had received had come from the same source, but all led to the same direction. Something shady was going on.
– Born in 1963
– A court reporter for STT, Nelonen uutiset and Helsingin Sanomat
– Part of the Helsingin sanomat investigative team
– Awarded twice with a “Lumilapio” award by the investigative journalists association of Finland (1998, 2014)
– Finnish journalist of the year 2007
Reinboth and Passi formed a team. Passi being the people-person and Reinboth acting as the designated document enthusiast. One source struck their interest, a sex worker who was given the pseudonym “Saara”. She wanted to come out with her story which involved extensive amounts of Aarnio’s criminal actions. Prior to this Saara had tried to contact the Police about Aarnio’s suspicious activities with no luck.
Through multiple conversations, interviews and text messages that Aarnio had sent to Saara, Reinboth and Passi were able to start unveiling the multi-leveled criminal entanglement that Aarnio had taken apart in.
This series of articles and police investigations revealed police corruption in Finland and eventually in 2016 Aarnio was sentenced for ten years in prison for multiple crimes including serious drug offences.
Read more about Jari Aarnio from this article published by Yle.
Secrecy as culture and how to fight it
Reinboth began her career as a journalist in the late 80’s and quickly specialized in court reporting. She thinks back as the 90’s being a very different time compared to now. Gathering information was very much different. It included weekly rounds of calls to the courthouses asking for interesting cases and visiting court hearings more than now. “Hanging out” in courthouses has died down, which she thinks affects the nuances of crime and court reporting.
– Between the hearings, there were long breaks which were extremely boring at times. But during the breaks you got into very enlightening talks, Reinboth reminisces.
In the 2010’s while working on the Aarnio case, public organizations started to act less transparently. At that time making requests for information was quite unusual.
– These days it’s almost the only way of getting any information because government officials are so secretive, Reinboth says.
She says some people have always been this way, but she feels that it is getting more usual.
– Finland is a small country that fits one idea at the time, the idea of the day is the protection of privacy.
While protection of privacy is important, Reinboth feels that privacy actions in Finland have reached problematic heights and it is a threat to freedom of speech. Poor interpretations of the laws is her biggest worry.
A recent incident happened with the regional state administrative agency when Reinboth was investigating inspection reports regarding work safety.
In a document she received in the mail, the only names included were the officials and responsible people from the company that the inspection concerned. The document was accompanied with many threats of repercussions if Reinboth published the names. The reasons were completely made up, she says
Reinboth fights for more transparent Finland is through complaints.
– I’m a complaint machine!
Although she makes many of them, she carefully evaluates the chances of succeeding in transparency complaints.
– Every loss weakens the possibility of getting that information in the future, so it is very important to stay on top of things.