Woz journalists receive Prix Transparence for arms report
Three journalists from the weekly newspaper (Woz) have spent five years fighting to obtain the names of companies that export war material, according to the Verein Öffentlichkeitsgesetz. The association has awarded them the Prix Transparence 2020 for their efforts.
The journalists had to stubbornly fight for the data on the Swiss arms business, writes the Association for the Freedom of Information Act in a press release on Tuesday. To be honored Woz-Co-editor Kaspar Surber and the editors Jan Jirát and Lorenz Naegeli.
According to her statements, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) refused to ask the companies for the data they were looking for. Their position was "we don't do that", said Jirát in a video published for the award. Seco had thus weighted the business interests of these companies higher than the public interest, Surber added.
The journalists ultimately went all the way to the Federal Supreme Court - and were proved right, the association explains further in the press release: In an "unmistakable ruling", the court made it clear that the names of the arms export companies had to be published.
"In the end, we received a list from Seco of all the companies that had submitted an export application for war material and special military goods," said Jirát. Surber added that the public now knew which Swiss companies exported weapons. This involves around 150 companies active in the arms business that received an export license in 2017.
Awards for environmental sins
The jury awarded second place to the article "Die Klimaschande von Visp" by Tamedia journalist Christoph Lenz. Based on the Publicity Act, he had demanded the publication of e-mails that prove a serious environmental failure of the Lonza plant in Valais and the authorities. The article appeared in the weekly magazine Magazine.
Third place went to Mathias Gottet and Cedric Fröhlich from the Bernese Newspaper for her contribution "The dirty surge tank". It deals with pesticide contamination in the canton of Bern. With the help of the Bern Information Act, the article revealed that chlorothalonil has been found in many more drinking water wells than previously assumed, writes the association.
Overall, the association, which promotes the application of these laws in journalism, writes that media professionals have produced more articles in the past "corona crisis year" using the publicity laws than ever before. For example, they used reports to document how the authorities initially underestimated the risk of the pandemic. (SDA)
