To the point: Relevance
Topics should be relevant to the reader. Only then will they be willing to pay for content. So much for the unanimous opinion of media professionals. But much of what has appeared in the media in recent days and weeks cannot be described as relevant, even with a lot of good will.
Some examples:
In the summer of 2012, the Newsnetz had an exclusive story. An article that neglected the simplest journalistic principles - the NZZ am Sonntag quoted the alleged maxim of the then editorial director Peter Wälty with the words "Shoot first, check later" - but it was a primeur. It was about a tweet - idiotic to say the least and at the same time extremely naive - by an SVP politician. This article then also led to the politician's personal grounding. Unpleasant. In order to somehow put things right, a two-page interview with the eager tweet writer appeared in the Tages-Anzeiger at the beginning of the year. The interview was conducted by editor-in-chief Strehle himself. Unusual and embarrassing.
Weltwoche then did not spare itself from publishing an article last week about Res Strehle's left-wing past. The front page shows Strehle in a thirty-year-old police photograph. In an illustration to the article, the weekly newspaper then made an embarrassing mistake, according to the NZZ am Sonntag: A picture did not show a former bomber as written, but a man with almost the same name, but who had nothing to do with explosives offenses. Questionable and embarrassing.
Sonntag newspaper asked Dominique von Burg, president of the Swiss Press Council, what he thought of the Strehle bashing. And he had nothing better to say than: "It is completely disproportionate to pillory Res Strehle in the way Weltwoche has done on its front page. For me, this is not permissible." The fact that he torpedoes the independence of the Press Council with these words doesn't seem to bother him. But at some point in the next few months, the Press Council will, after all, then have to issue a statement on the incriminated Wewo article. Naive and embarrassing.
Also extremely relevant were the articles about Ueli Maurer's sponsor Jäckli in Schladming, the protest of the Lucerne police about the latest crime scene episode and the alleged surreptitious advertising of stress on Swiss color television. So the article about the woman in New Zealand who died of Coca-Cola addiction is almost relevant, and the reader benefit is also clear: 10 liters of Coca-Cola a day are unhealthy.
Pierre C. Meier, Editor-in-Chief
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