Trump and Putin reminded about freedom of press

During Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meeting in Helsinki back in July, Finland’s largest newspaper has put up 300 outdoor posters in English and Russian on the route from the airport to the summit—all advocating for the freedom of the press, which both world leaders are known to often denigrate. Created by Tbwa\helsinki for Finland’s largest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, these posters aim to bring attention to their “turbulent relations with the press.” All executions feature headlines from past articles published in the Finnish newspaper between 2000 and 2018 with hopes that this will “remind them [Putin and Trump] of the importance of free press as a cornerstone of all democratic societies”. One of the poster reads: “Mr. President, welcome to the land of free press.”one poster, with a headline from 2004, reads in Russian: “Russian reporter who criticized Putin gains asylum in Britain.” Other headlines include “Trump calls media enemy of the people”,“putin shuts down Russia’s largest news agency”, and “Putin is trying again to bring the media to heel.” According to Kaius Nieme, senior editor-in-chief of Helsingin Sanomat, the campaign’s goal is to “raise the topic of the freedom of the press around the world.” “This is a statement on behalf of critical and high quality journalism,” Nieme wrote in the press release. “As we welcome the presidents to the summit in Finland, we want to remind them of the importance of free press. The media shouldn’t be the lap dog of any president or regime.” “We want to show our support to those colleagues who have to fight in ever toughening circumstances on a daily basis, both in the U.S. and Russia,” Nieme continued. Russia ranks 148th out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index. The U.S. ranks 45th, better than Russia but hardly exemplary.