STT terminates its entire editorial office, stops news activities

The change negotiations concerning the journalist staff, which started at the beginning of October, ended on Wednesday.

89 people will be laid off. Chief Steward Hannu Aaltonen tells HS that this group includes all of STT’s journalists: dozens of journalists, a number of chief journalists, editor-in-chief Minna Holopainen and a dozen photojournalists.

“There is no journalistic task left,” says Aaltonen.

Aaltonen says that after the layoffs, there will be a few employees responsible for the news agency’s image and text archive who are not journalists.

Change negotiations outside was STT Viestintäpalvelut. It distributes press releases and employs about ten people and will continue to operate for the time being.

“But that’s not journalistic either. Everyone who does journalistic work will be fired,” says Aaltonen.

STT delivers news to the press and radio channels until the end of March.

“Then the work obligation will end and STT’s operations in its current form will end, if a miracle doesn’t happen. And it probably won’t.”

STT,’s profit development has been stagnant for a long time, especially for news and photo agencies. In fact, the entire STT plunged into a loss in 2025.

The reason for the profit development was that STT lost its biggest customer, i.e. Sanoma uutismediat. Sanoma also publishes Helsingin Sanomi.

After Sanoma decided to stop buying news from STT and the threat of termination was raised, the Ministry of Transport and Communications began to work on state support of one million euros to continue news operations. The government said it wanted to secure the continuation of STT’s operations.

Negotiations took place, but now the so-called bridge financing has been frozen, says chief steward Aaltonen.

“A million would have been great money for our artificial intelligence projects and development, but not for running a news agency.”

Aaltonen says that he is disappointed that he did not receive sufficient support from the state for the continuation of the news agency’s operations.

“I am, of course, deeply saddened with all my colleagues who have done their best in these difficult circumstances, but also because, if the state thinks that even fur farming and digging bogs are perfectly fine to support, then news activities are obviously not something that the state considers worth investing more in in this time of hybrid influence.”

Aaltonen also regrets the fact that STT is one of the most trusted domestic news media. For example, in this year’s news media trust and reputation survey, STT was the most trusted news media in Finland.

Union of Journalists the chairman Marjaana Varmavuoren according to the news is crushing.

“I am deeply shocked. This is terrible news,” he says.

In the press release sent by the union, he also expresses that he is sorry on behalf of all STT employees.

According to Varmavuori, the shutdown of STT, the cutting of Yle’s funding and news on Thursday Pushing the photographer in the courtroom lead to Finland’s drop in the freedom of expression index.

STT:n chairman of the board Petteri Putkiranta stated earlier in the fall HS:llethat the business model of traditional news agencies like STT is changing rapidly.

Large foreign news agencies have increasingly invested in data-based services as the demand for traditional news agencies wanes.

However, the Finnish market is small, and STT’s resources were not enough to change the entire business on a fast schedule, Putkiranta said at the time.

STT’s customers also had different needs and expectations for the news agency, which partly made it difficult to find a new direction.

“The needs of a national media house are different from the needs of regional media,” says Putkiranta.

Putkiranta is also Sanoma Media Finland’s business director responsible for news and feature media.

STT has traditionally been owned by its largest customers. STT’s largest owner is currently Sanoma, which owns 75 percent.

The second largest owner is the media group Keskisuomalainen, with just over ten percent ownership. Smaller owners are Hufvudstadsbladet, Ilkka and Yleisradio.

STT, founded in 1887, is a news agency that has sold news and pictures to various media.

Correction 29.10. at 2:42 p.m. In the article earlier, it was erroneously referred to as Wednesday, when Thursday was meant.

Correction 29.10. at 3:53 p.m. The change negotiations ended on Wednesday, not Thursday. STT announced the end of news and photo agency operations on Thursday.