60 years old | Maarit Tastula, known for her discussion programs, is a “curious human researcher”

“Is 60 years old or young? ”Apricots the reporter Maarit Tastula.

One way to approach this is to remember who has been interviewed during your career. There have been many things: rich, robber and poet.

“I guess I have to be old when I interview, for example Leif Wageria, About Matti Kekko and Eeva-Kaarina Volasta. It feels like it was a completely different time. ”

“That it has become battered here.”

It is gratifying that the request for an interview has rarely been rejected. Tastula refused to remember. One of them had avoided publicity Aatos Erkko. Up close, though, triggered.

“It’s a little left to dig.”

Erkko had already said he was considering it, but eventually refused. He died in 2012.

What would you have asked Erko?

“It was related to my master’s degree. I would have asked him, for example, how capitalism and the market economy gained a stronger place in journalism. That, in his opinion, how good investigative journalism, democracy and market orientation relate to each other. ”

In any case years are good for the supplier, Tastula assures.

“The good thing about aging is that you get perspective at the same time. There is a background to what is happening in the present. ”

It is no surprise that rummaging through history is an important hobby for Tastula. In addition to reading, the desire to explore and understand a little more has been of interest since childhood.

“Probably for the same reason I was expecting a typewriter from Santa when I was ten years old. By the way, no one had seen it alive in that environment before, ”says the daughter of a family of workers from Kokkola.

Sounds determined. According to Tastula, instead of planning, his path has been guided by curiosity.

“As a human being, I have never been career-oriented. Formerly curious. I have thought that knowledge and understanding are an end in themselves. ”

As a supplier Tastula ended in the early 80s. At that time, there was still a politicized time in the editorials, when the journalist’s party membership was important. He gives an example:

“Before I was regularized on the television side, I had to question one of the bosses about what membership book I have. And when it wasn’t, they wondered why it wasn’t. ”

Through the cultural editorial office of Radio and Aamulehti, Tastula Road took you to television. The journalist, who enjoyed writing and admits to being an introvert, soon found himself in Yle’s current second group.

“The top two was a great journalism school for me.”

In those years, Tastula watched from the backyard as the carriages of history revolved and the world around them changed.

He was in Timisoara, Romania, in the days following the execution of Ceausescu, saw the collapse of Eastern Europe, interviewed returnees in Ingerman on the sweeps of Soviet deaths, watched the Yankees destroy drug laboratories in the Peruvian jungles, and reported on the impact of the Rio environmental mining.

And then there was, of course, the recession of the 90s.

Worldwide, the scramble was followed by calm interview programs such as One Night Stop, Red Wire and Avec Tastula. With them, Tastula got to know him as a skilled personal interviewer. There have also been awards.

“I guess that’s what my whole journalistic career is based on – the joy of connecting with another person.”

For those who have missed Tastula on television, there is good news. A new “series combining documentary and participatory journalism” is due next year.

“The intention is to make a good-natured program to counterbalance the world of confrontation. I travel to different parts of Finland in the program and I show different ways of living. And I’m pretending to have fun. ”

Tastula says he finds the current social debate atmosphere distressing.

“Somehow I wanted to lighten that burden and make a program that doesn’t approach the world through problems but through joy and everyday life. I am a great appreciator of everyday life. Everyday life is what keeps us together. ”

One mission is to show everyday life outside the perimeter of the third.

“To be honest, the media gaze is a bit narrow. It’s really expert-centered, which of course is also good. But more is needed to increase understanding of people. I want to show how people live in different realities. ”

The journalist’s happiness is that when working, his own worldview also expands.

“Having seen a wide variety of human destinies and choices makes it harder to judge people. It would be great if I could also bring a glimpse into the living rooms of the spectators. ”

The speech returns back to the person time and time again. A person can never be understood until he sees his background, Tastula says.

“We are all shaped by our environment. I value investigative journalism, I have been the subject of research. ”