Declaration on Freedom of Speech in Tampere – event for invited guests
The Tampere Freedom of Speech Event was initiated by the administrative committee of the Pirkanmaa Regional Fund that operates under the umbrella of the Finnish Cultural Foundation. At the heart of the event is the Tampere Declaration on Freedom of Speech, in other words, the keynote speech, delivered this year by American journalist Kathleen Carroll.
In addition to our international guest speakers, the event will also feature US correspondent and 2024 Journalist of the Year Iida Tikka; Editor-in-Chief Markku Mantila; and Olli Seuri, a journalist and member of the board of the C.V. Åkerlund Media Foundation.
Kathleen Carroll
Carroll is a tireless defender of freedom of speech and a leader in decision-making about vital issues concerning journalists’ safety. She plays a leadership role in key organisations advocating for freedom of the press and has chaired the Pulitzer Prize Board. She has led a distinguished career and is the first woman ever to become the top news executive of the world’s largest independent news agency, the more than 150-year-old Associated Press. She served as the executive editor and vice president of the Associated Press for 14 years (2002–2016), responsible for the work of journalists in more than 100 countries.
For more than 14 years, she was executive editor and senior vice president of the Associated Press, the world’s largest independent news agency. As the top news executive (2002-2016), she was responsible for all coverage from AP’s journalists, based in 260 locations across 106 countries.
In 2025, she joined the inaugural board of the Associated Press Fund for Journalism. She chairs the board of the Montclair Local, a startup-nonprofit news organization in New Jersey. Carroll also has served on the advisory boards of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics and the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, both at Harvard.
She served for 15 years on board of the Committee to Protect Journalists, the non-profit organization that works on behalf of journalists across the globe, the last 6 years as board chair. She also served for nine years on the board of the Pulitzer Prizes, the last year as co-chair.
Earlier in her career, Carroll led the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau and the company’s international bureaus during coverage of several wars and the 9/11 attacks on the United States. She has been an editor in The AP’s bureaus in Washington, DC., California, New Jersey and Texas, as well as the International Herald Tribune in Paris, the Mercury News in San Jose, California, and The Dallas Morning News in her hometown.
Carroll is a frequent judge for journalist contests and an authoritative consultant on accuracy, best standards and other related issues. She has given speeches to many universities and international organizations on the importance of ethics and safety.
In July 2013, Carroll was the first journalist to address the United Nations Security Council on the topic of press freedom, urging world leaders to do more to protect the journalists in their countries.
Carroll was the first woman to lead the newsroom in the AP’s 156-year history and over the next 14 years, the number of women leading key departments and bureaus increased significantly.
When AP opened important new bureaus in Saudi Arabia, North Korea and Myanmar, each was headed by a woman. And it was four women reporters who discovered enslaved fishermen on a remote Asian island, then tracked the slave-caught fish all the way to American grocery shelves. The 2016 “Seafood from Slaves” stories led to freedom for more than 2,000 men and reforms in the fishing industry. The work of that team earned numerous journalism honors, including the AP’s first Public Service Pulitzer Prize. AP won 5 other Pulitzer Prizes during Carroll’s tenure, as well as 6 George Polk Awards, 15 Overseas Press Club Awards and recognition from the Royal Television Society and the Radio Television Digital News Association.
Iida Tikka
Iida Tikka is best known as the Chief U.S. Correspondent for YLE, the Finnish public broadcasting service. During her 2020-2025 tenure, she has covered American life and times intensely during both Biden and Trump’s second administrations. As a reporter on television, radio and online, Iida Tikka has become a leading voice in analyzing the internal and external politics and economy of the United States.
For her outstanding work Iida Tikka was this Spring awarded the Journalist of the Year 2024 in Finland (Suuri Journalistipalkinto).
Iida Tikka also looks for America as the producer and host of her own current affairs podcast series Mureneva maa (in English Iida Tikka & Casting Flaws, lit. The Crumbling Country).
She has a close relationship with the United States also through her personal life, as she earned her MA in Security Studies in Georgetown University, majoring in International Security. Tikka is also alumna of Tampere University where she got her BA in Social Sciences while majoring in Journalism.
Iida Tikka worked as a Moscow Correspondent for the Finnish News Agency STT and Finland’s leading television channel, MTV, back in 2015-2017.
