Aamulehti editor-in-chief Sanna Keskinen estimates that the report will be completed by midsummer.
Morning paper has failed a media researcher Maria Lassila-Merisalon to find out about his former editor Matti Kuuselan the veracity of the stories. Aamulehti gave the name of the author of the report on Thursday.
Aamulehti’s editor-in-chief Sanna Keskinen estimates that the report will probably be completed by Midsummer.
“The investigation will focus on analyzing Kuusela’s stories and finding out the truth. In addition, we are investigating internally the possible effects of the delivery processes, management and delivery culture on the fact that such a method of operation has been born and continued for years,” Keskinen said in the Aamulehti story.
Lassila-Merisalo was chosen as the author of the report because of his expertise on the subject, Keskinen told STT on Thursday. In 2009, Lassila-Merisalo did her dissertation on fiction journalism. In addition, he is involved in a project that studies reliable journalistic storytelling.
Investigation work the schedule is tough, but we aim for it, Lassila-Merisalo told STT on Thursday.
“I am of the understanding that some of the cases are quite clear in that it does not take terribly long to investigate them.”
However, according to Lassila-Merisalo, not everything can be verified. For example, the interviewee may have been named in the story only by their first name, people may already be dead or otherwise unreachable.
Lassila-Merisalo said that, for example, she intends to extensively interview Kuusela’s former colleagues and others who have followed Kuusela’s work. The researcher said that he hopes that Kuusela will also participate in the investigation. However, he has not yet been in contact with Kuusela.
Lassila-Merisalo estimate on Monday Journalisti magazine, that Kuusela’s case represents a collision of eras. In the newspaper, he emphasized Aamulehti’s responsibility for Kuusela’s activities and said that he thought it was clear that Kuusela’s predecessors knew that he was making up content for stories that the reader cannot necessarily distinguish from the facts.
According to Aamulehti, it is very possible that as the investigation progresses, the paper will make Kuusela’s stories available to the public. The goal is that, in as many cases as possible, problematic points could be identified for the reader more precisely than just with a top-level fiction warning.
Kuusela’s stories can be returned online if there is no fabrication, as well as those whose fictitious part can be precisely identified, said Keskinen to STT on Thursday before the author of the investigation was announced.
“Stories may remain permanently deleted, the fabricated part of which cannot be ascertained with sufficient precision.”
From the web 551 articles written by Kuusela Aamulehti have now been deleted. According to Keskinen, three Kuusela stories were left on the web, to which it was possible to quickly add information about which part of the story is false.
Central by the decision to delete was made because an internal investigation revealed that there were falsehoods in several stories so that the reader could not recognize them.
Kuusela himself had stated in his book that he has also used sepite in his stories.
According to the journalist’s instructions, the public must be able to distinguish facts from opinions and fictitious material.
Kuusela worked as a regular editor of Aamulehti from 1983 to 2020 and has since worked as an occasional assistant to the magazine.