An internal investigation carried out by an external party was started at WSOY regarding the bullying accusations of author Katja Ketu.
Katja Kettu felt that she had been bullied at her former publishing house, WSOY. Kari Pekonen
Author Katja Kettu spoke last fall in an interview with Helsingin Sanomat and Arto Nyberg’s in a talk show about the bullying he experienced at a former publishing house. There was a big fuss about it at the time. Kettu did not directly name his former publishing house or its employees, but it is common knowledge that WSOY previously published his books. At that time, WSOY denied the harassment accusations to Iltalehti.
Now WSOY announces that it has asked an external party to make a report on the publishing process of Katja Ketu’s information book. The release says that WSOY has zero tolerance for all bullying and inappropriate behavior, and that is why the publishing house wants to find out the matter and, if necessary, take internal measures based on it. The report is made by the professor of communication law Päivi Korpisaari.
Korpisaari does the investigation independently and gets access to the requested material from WSOY. This applies, for example, to all e-mail exchanges and text messages between the publishing house’s employees and the author. In addition to the publishing house, the material has also been requested directly from the author Katja Ketu.
The survey will be carried out during January and February 2024. The report of the investigation is given to Ketu and WSOY, and WSOY is committed to publishing its content as it is.
Serious accusations
Katja Ketu’s accusations came as a surprise to WSOY last fall. Kettu talked about the topic in addition to the newspaper interview Arto Nyberg’s in the talk show and said that the process of making the book left a bad aftertaste.
– When I made a non-fiction book for the previous publishing house, I had a pretty strong feeling about bullying at school. Files disappeared, I wasn’t told about certain meetings, decisions were made behind my back, I didn’t see the end result of the book, many of my corrections didn’t go through, Kettu described to HS at the time.
She also said that she had a miscarriage and asked for understanding about her reduced ability to work, when the publishing house informed her that it was a “career choice issue”.
WSOY’s director of communications Reetta Miettinen denied the bullying claims to Iltalehte at the time and said that their veracity would be investigated.
– We have zero tolerance for bullying. We have been really surprised by these claims. They are not true. We can verify this, Miettinen told Iltalehte, and denied, for example, the exchange of messages related to miscarriage.