Rundschau keeps ombudsman's office on its toes

No fewer than eleven complaints were received by the SRG German-speaking Switzerland ombudsman's office following the SRF television program "Rundschau" on the subject of "Foster children with strict believers". He judged the eleven complaints to be justified, said ombudsman Achille Casanova on Tuesday at the request of the news agency SDA. The program had described devout families who were committed to foster children as sectarian.

With almost a dozen complaints, the aforementioned Rundschau program was the most controversial in the entire reporting year. However, individual other broadcasts also resulted in several complaints. In view of this accumulation of individual broadcasts, the increase in the total number of complaints received cannot be interpreted as growing dissatisfaction on the part of the audience, the ombudsman writes in the 2013 annual report.

Over the course of the year, Rundschau attracted a total of 23 complaints - and thus the most. 18 complaints concerned the Tagesschau, nine criticized 10vor10 broadcasts. Kassensturz, on the other hand, which had 19 complaints in 2012, was only criticized once in the reporting year.

115 complaints treated

The ombudsman dealt with 115 complaints in accordance with the Radio and Television Act: 20 of these concerned radio broadcasts, 92 television broadcasts and three concerned both media. The most common complaint (42%) was "inappropriate or politically biased" reporting, while 20% of the submissions complained of defamation of a person, association or company.

The ombudsman's office forwarded eleven complaints to the Independent Complaints Authority UBI. For legal reasons, it did not take action on 64 submissions and sent them to the editorial offices concerned for a direct response. The ombudsman's office dealt with 20 complaints about teletext and online contributions on a voluntary basis, but rejected all of them, as the statement continues.

Election and voting broadcasts

Furthermore, at a meeting between the UBI and the ombudsman's offices of all radio and television broadcasters, the ombudsman suggested that the timing of the "hot phase" before elections and votes should be reconsidered. The general maxim is that the closer to the date of the ballot, "the more dominant the balance requirement is". In the last week, contributions must be "necessarily balanced". These dates seemed to him to be too short or at least too imprecise, the ombudsman writes in the annual report, as more and more voters are now voting by post very early on. (SDA)