Promoting democracy, pluralism and vitality in society
Contributor to a sustainable society
Alma Media’s media brands are committed to defending freedom of speech and a pluralistic and democratic society. They engage in ethical, objective and transparent journalism and help citizens improve their media skills.
Other Alma Media services also strive to enhance the vitality of their communities and support the balanced development of society, often in cooperation with other organisations, educational institutes or other companies.
While the methods vary, the goal is the same: providing people with tools for sustainable growth in both professional and private life.
Equality and diversity at work
Profesia, a Slovakian recruitment service company that is part of Alma Media Group, launched a project in 2018 to make it easier for people with disabilities to get jobs and find new employment opportunities.
Titled Help With Heart, the project increases Slovakian companies’ competencies and understanding related to employees with disabilities in order to provide more diverse opportunities for them in the job market.
“We conducted a survey on the acceptance of diversity at workplaces. The results indicated that people with disabilities represented a very small proportion of employees, so we wanted to make it easier for them to find jobs,” says Profesia’s CSR Manager Anna Podlesná.
Help with Heart program helps the disabled to find job opportunities. According to Profesia’s studies, 25 % of the disabled job applicants confirmed that they successfully found a job through Profesia.sk platform. Profesia’s goal is to increase the amount of successful disabled jon candidates to 50% by 2025.
In 2020 Profesia won the Via Bona sustainability award in the responsible small business category. Profesia was recognized for their activities dedicated to helping the disabled people in the labor market, improving Slovak education and work towards a society free of corruption.
An opposing force to fake news and hate speech
Responsible media companies must internalise how they can best support democracy and open dialogue between citizens.
One way to achieve this is to develop the ways editorial teams work and to open up this information to public scrutiny. Alma Media’s editorial teams have set quality goals for the content they publish. The key indicators used in monitoring their achievement include the number of condemnatory decisions by the Council for Mass Media as well as the results of reader surveys.
If the results decline, the editorial teams take action to respond.
Alma Media’s editorial offices also cooperate with schools in many ways. One of the focuses of this cooperation is media education. We consider it important for schools to produce children who have the capacity to act sensibly both as consumers and producers of content.
Interesting but not irresponsible
Headlines can be bold but they must not upset or insult anyone. Facts must be checked and false rumours exposed, states Iltalehti’s Editor-in-Chief Erja Yläjärvi.