How and when was the outlet established? 2011 2012 JAN 2013 SUMMER 2013 Two people con - Eight experienced The Long Play company was created and 250 000€ compe - ceived the idea for journalists (many website launched tition award from Long Play working for big Finn - Helsingin Sanomain Start-up tab: $600 – covered the illustrator ish media) started an Säätiö (foundation of Applied unsuc - for their fjrst book, server space and print - organization called a big newspaper) - cessfully to sever - ing of promotion fmyers (“even the drinks Hitaan journalismin for a completely new al foundations for for the obligatory launch party were spon - yhdistys (association way of working in Fin - funding (->linked sored”) for slow journalism) land & the success of huffpost article) Start-up team was comprised of journal - the fjrst stories ists → didn’t have to pay upfront for content creation First story (about international soccer cor - ruption in Finnish Lapland): sold around 500 single articles à 4,90€ → enough money to cover the costs Next story (Himasen etiikka) sold around 5000 → enough initial capital to continue
Who were they key fjgures? Ilkka Karisto Antti Järvi Riku Siivonen Anu Silfverberg Johanna Vehkoo Hanna Nikkanen Ilkka Pernu Reetta Nousiainen
What sparked the idea of creating an outlet like Long Play? Clickbait articles were coming to Finnish media Funding for investigative journalism was declining → Longplay.fi as a counter-reaction (“as long as possible, as non-clickbaity as possibly, just good, long stories and nothing more.”)
What were the basic principles and why? → “fair trade journalism”: transparent financing (reader-funded / no “sneaky” advertising) and just salaries → majority-owned by founders → independence → quality stories: stories worth telling, responsible fact-checking, good writing
“Ideal” conditions for journalistic work? YES: NO: there is enough time Limited budget for a story: the editor is present → no stories that take more time and effort, e.g. longer or interna - it is noticed if a story needs tional investigations/collabora- some extra support tions, multimedia → “Ideal situation would be a situation where the price of the subject wouldn’t limit making the story.”
How many people work there now? Fulltime: editor in chief workshops editor CEO and writes the and marketing weekly and producing newsletter + part-time producer + freelance developers + freelance journalists
52 Per year: SIVUÄÄNET Shorter articles (free) 12 try to have one per week, but often fail because of too much work long * articles (paid) FRIDAY NEWSLETTER opinion piece by Anu Silfverberg links to notable journalistic work (and a recipe for a paste)
Freelance journalists (extra costs like travels and FOI re - 12 stories 2000€ quests are covered a year separately) per long story If the story requires → about 8 in-house lot of extra work, → rest freelance there can be add- ed reward, but it is rare.
Reader & subscription numbers 7000 regular/yearly subscribers around 24 000 readers (estimated, difficult to tell) 14 000 newsletter subscribers
Funding 30% from workshops/ training 5% from commis- sioned stories for 65% from sales and sub- other outlets scriptions - Even though the business model is buying single arti- cles, the main goal is to get person to subscribe
Funding Investors + grants (Uutisraivaaja and e.g. Radio Helsinki (another independent Finnish media), Oras Tynkkynen (green party politician), Tukes): around 600 000€ Vesa Linja-Aho (journalist, engineer and teacher) Into Kustannus (small Finnish publishing house) + 250.000€ investments in 2018 “The investors are people who would be okay with not gaining profit, but happy → Goal is to be profitable by 2020. if they do. They also thought that they That would need around 10 might have something to give to com- 000 more subscribers (current- pany talent wise or just want to support ly around 1500 more every year) the cause.” and same amount of workshops as this year → 75% of company owned by funders, 25% by investors
Most notable investigations Talvivaara Himasen Fennomania Veden vangit Satunnaistarkastus Newest about a mine that had etiikka about a nucle - about racial profjling about the dolph - story horrible effects on en - ar start-up that among police in Fin - inarium in Tam - about corrup - about abu - vironment in Lapland. was supposed land and it revealed pere, revealing tion in Finnish sive profes - Kauppinen got leak of academia to increase Finn - screen captions by a suspicious stuff sor at Aalto 4500 pages of police ish dependency racist fb group by po - about it and mis - university investigation papers on nuclear pow - lice. handling the dol - er from Russia phins.
Main criticism → main readers: urban (Helsinki), academically higher educated, 35-45 years → elitist → financial barrier (libraries mitigate that) → length can make it inaccessible
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