Teenagers "take over" radio, TV news broadcasting in Finland

School teenagers on Tuesday "took over" part of journalistic work on Finnish national radio and television on Tuesday.

Hundreds of "young journalists" represented school classes that had participated in the "News Classroom" project assisted by national broadcaster Yle.

Pupils acted as reporters and also as co-presenters of newscasts, both nationally and in regional operations. In the main Yle radio newscast at 5 p.m. local time, anchor Petteri Lopponen was joined by two pupils from a school at Mantsala, north of Helsinki.

Assignments given to school journalists on Tuesday ranged from reporting the arrival of the gold medal winning Finnish U-20 Ice Hockey team at the Helsinki Airport to an informal live interview with Prime Minister Juha Sipila.

Started in 2014, the project aims to make youngsters more media savvy and also increase interest in societal matters. It involves students of school grade six to nine who are aged 13-16.

Pupils learn through the work that there is always a person behind the news, and news is not something "given from somewhere," producer Hanna Visala said.

Currently 300 schools take part and in some schools, all classs in grade eight take part, according to Visala. "We have some difficulty in serving them all, but then we rotate the tutors," Visala told Yle.

Commenting on the day, one participant in the Helsinki region described it as a "once-in-a-life-time" experience. Endit