Farmers' association overtaken on the right
Guest commentary A review of the annual conference of the Swiss press in Lausanne by Urs Gossweiler.
Guest commentary A review of the annual conference of the Swiss press in Lausanne by Urs Gossweiler.
As in Monopoly, Lausanne and Zurich are the most expensive and valuable locations in the real world of Swiss media. The annual conference of us newspaper publishers has never been held in Zurich, but this year it will take place in Lausanne. In the same way, the leading role in the media alliances that are increasingly taking place between these two cities seems to be clearly distributed. Be that as it may, we Swiss-German publishers met for the annual meeting in Lausanne, as always in the finest hotel on the square. But that didn't stop us from spending three days debating mainly about state funding for press TV, regional press television, publishers' radio stations, contributions to private publishing organizations (preferably only those owned by the press, of course), direct contributions to the national news agency, media institute and other further training, technology support and much more.
At the same time, we encourage our business editors to write for more deregulation and privatization. Does anyone see a credibility problem here? No. And if we did, we would rather change the course of our economic reporting than our attitude towards more and more state subsidies. What is actually tragic is not the begging for state money that has become fashionable in the last three years. Nor is it the embarrassment of repeatedly doing so in the best and most expensive hotels, even though the association does its utmost to save on drinks and lunches during breaks. The real tragedy is our almost naïve attitude towards what the state demands of us.
For example, we have been fighting for a seat on the Press Council for a year now, even though it performs its duties professionally and prudently without us publishers. At the same time, we almost don't care if the National Council approves the media article that is supposed to pave the way for comprehensive "supervision" of the press in this country. Freedom of the press, journalistic responsibility, new business models and entrepreneurial action were almost non-issues at our annual meeting.
The trend of the last three years was confirmed in Lausanne: if we continue like this, we will soon overtake the farmers' association on the right. The fact that we voted clearly in favor of deregulation when it comes to social partnership does not change this. Farmers, too, occasionally struggle to comply with social rules when dealing with harvest workers from abroad.
> Urs Gossweiler is the publisher of Jungfrau Zeitung.
As in Monopoly, Lausanne and Zurich are the most expensive and valuable locations in the real world of Swiss media. The annual conference of us newspaper publishers has never been held in Zurich, but this year it will take place in Lausanne. In the same way, the leading role in the media alliances that are increasingly taking place between these two cities seems to be clearly distributed. Be that as it may, we Swiss-German publishers met for the annual meeting in Lausanne, as always in the finest hotel on the square. But that didn't stop us from spending three days debating mainly about state funding for press TV, regional press television, publishers' radio stations, contributions to private publishing organizations (preferably only those owned by the press, of course), direct contributions to the national news agency, media institute and other further training, technology support and much more.
At the same time, we encourage our business editors to write for more deregulation and privatization. Does anyone see a credibility problem here? No. And if we did, we would rather change the course of our economic reporting than our attitude towards more and more state subsidies. What is actually tragic is not the begging for state money that has become fashionable in the last three years. Nor is it the embarrassment of repeatedly doing so in the best and most expensive hotels, even though the association does its utmost to save on drinks and lunches during breaks. The real tragedy is our almost naïve attitude towards what the state demands of us.
For example, we have been fighting for a seat on the Press Council for a year now, even though it performs its duties professionally and prudently without us publishers. At the same time, we almost don't care if the National Council approves the media article that is supposed to pave the way for comprehensive "supervision" of the press in this country. Freedom of the press, journalistic responsibility, new business models and entrepreneurial action were almost non-issues at our annual meeting.
The trend of the last three years was confirmed in Lausanne: if we continue like this, we will soon overtake the farmers' association on the right. The fact that we voted clearly in favor of deregulation when it comes to social partnership does not change this. Farmers, too, occasionally struggle to comply with social rules when dealing with harvest workers from abroad.
> Urs Gossweiler is the publisher of Jungfrau Zeitung.
