Helsingin Sanomat, abbreviatedHS and colloquially known asHesari, is the largestsubscriptionnewspaper in Finland and theNordic countries, owned bySanoma. Except after certain holidays, it is published daily. Its name derives from that of the Finnish capital,Helsinki, where it is published. It is considered anewspaper of record for Finland.

'Helsingin Sanomat'

Type	Dailynewspaper
Format	Compact
Owner(s)	Sanoma
Editor	Erja Yläjärvi
Founded	1889; 136 years ago (1889) as Päivälehti 1905 as Helsingin Sanomat
Political alignment	Liberalism[1]
Language	Finnish
Headquarters	Helsinki, Finland
Circulation	339,437 (2019)
Website	www.hs.fi

The paper was founded in 1889^[2] asPäivälehti, whenFinland was a Grand Duchy under theTsar ofRussia.^[3]

Political censorship by the Russian authorities, prompted by the paper's strong advocacy of greater Finnish freedoms and even outright independence, forced Päivälehti to often temporarily suspend publication, and finally to close permanently in 1904.^[4] Its proprietors re-opened the paper under its current name in 1905.^[5]

Founded as the organ of theYoung Finnish Party, the paper has been politically independent and non-aligned since 1932.^[2][6] During theCold War periodHelsingin Sanomat was among the Finnish newspapers which were accused by theSoviet Union of being the instrument ofUS propaganda, and the Soviet Embassy in Helsinki frequently protested the editors of the paper.^[7]

Helsingin Sanomat has a long history as afamily business, owned by theErkko family.^[8] It is currently owned by theSanoma media group which also ownsIlta-Sanomat.^[9] The relationship between the owners ofHelsingin Sanomat and Finland's government have sometimes been close. For instance, during the run-up to theWinter War,Eljas Erkko was at the same time the paper's publisher andFinland's foreign minister.

Helsingin Sanomat strongly advocated Finland joining theEuropean Union in the run-up to the decision to do so in 1994. It has also openly expressed support for Finland's membership ofNATO.^[10]

Mikael Pentikäinen was theeditor-in-chief until May 2013 when he was fired from the post.^[11][12] Riikka Venäläinen replaced him temporarily in the post.^[11] After Riikka Venäläinen the post has been held byKaius Niemi.^[13]

After the2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the newspaper established a Russian-language news website to cover the war. In May 2022, Russian authorities blocked access to the website of the newspaper.^[14]

On 5 April 2023, editor-in-chiefKaius Niemi was arrested fordriving under the influence. He was fined in court and resigned from his post.Erja Yläjärvi became the new editor-in-chief in August.^[15]

Helsingin Sanomat is published daily inFinnish incompact format with the exception of the days after public holidays when the paper does not appear. Subscriptions make up 97% of the newspaper's circulation.^[16] The front page is usually devoted to advertisements.

The newspaper was published inbroadsheet format until 6 January 2013.^[17]

The paper also has a monthly supplement namedKuukausiliite (Finnish forMonthly Supplement), and a weekly TV guide and entertainment-oriented supplement namedNyt (meaningNow in English). Between 1999 and 2012 there were also both Finnish and English-languageonline newspaper editions.^[18]

Content ofHelsingin Sanomat can be accessed also through mobile devices.

The circulation ofHelsingin Sanomat was 476,163 copies in 1993, making it the most read newspaper in Finland.^[6] In the period of 1995–96 the paper sold 470,600 copies.^[19] Its circulation was 446,380 copies in 2001, making it the largest paper in the country.^[20] In 2008 the paper sold 412,421 on weekdays^[16] (a change of −1.8% from 2007) and 468,505 copies on Sundays (−1.3%). In 2011 the daily had a circulation of 365,994 copies, making it the most read paper in the country.^[21] The same year it was also the largest paper in terms of readership.^[21]

Approximately 75% of households in theHelsinki metropolitan area subscribe toHelsingin Sanomat, and it functions as the region's local paper. Its total daily circulation is well over 400,000, or about 8% of Finland's total population, making it the biggest daily subscription newspaper in theNordic countries. This reaches about 14% of all households in Finland.^{[citation needed]}

The paper is a significant factor inFinnish society and inpublic opinion.^[10] Pertti Klemola, a Finnish journalist and scholar, once called it a state authority, an institution with its own independent social and political will.^[22]

In June 2009 the site was the sixth most popular Finnish website.^[23] In 2010 it was the seventh most visited website in Finland in 2010 and was visited by 1,236,527 people per week.^[24]

TheEnglish-language section of theHelsingin Sanomat website, theHelsingin Sanomat International Edition (HSIE), ran for thirteen years.^[25]

TheInternational Edition launched on 14 September 1999 with the aim of informing readers of news from Finland during the Finnishpresidency of the European Union.^[26] It continued after the European presidency owing to the quantity of readers it was getting became one of the major English-language sources of news regarding Finland—making it popular with English-speaking immigrants to the country.

TheHelsingin Sanomat International Edition closed down on 26 October 2012.^[27] English material is now published in cooperation withHelsinki Times weekly newspaper.^[28] For a while,Helsingin Sanomat also published some of its material in Russian, but the service was discontinued on 6 October 2014.^[29]

• List of Finnish newspapers

• Merrill, John C. and Harold A. Fisher.The world's great dailies: profiles of fifty newspapers (1980) pp 156–61

• Helsingin Sanomat(in Finnish)
• Helsingin Sanomat International Edition (English)