🇫🇮 Helsingin Sanomat

About Helsingin Sanomat

Helsingin Sanomat is owned by the Sanoma media group, the largest subscription newspaper in Finland and the Nordic countries. Sanoma is a publicly listed company, with the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation being the biggest owner and the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation the fifth biggest owner. These foundations aim to support high-level scientific research, arts, culture, and to secure the future of Finnish media, quality journalism, and freedom of speech.

Helsingin Sanomat is considered a newspaper of record for Finland and is rated as Left-Center biased by Media Bias/Fact Check, based on editorial positions favoring environmentalism and left-leaning social justice policy. Ground News also assigns it a 'Lean Left' aggregated media bias and a 'High factuality rating'. Finland consistently ranks among the top countries for press freedom, with Reporters Without Borders placing it 5th globally in 2025 and Freedom House giving it a perfect 100/100 for political rights and civil liberties. Britannica notes its foreign coverage is among the best in the world and its presentation tends to be unbiased and balanced. While historically independent, its ownership has at times had close ties to the government. The headline sample includes a mix of domestic, international, and cultural news, with some articles, like the one on gender equality, aligning with its reported center-left lean, and others demonstrating investigative journalism, such as the