Those who lay small eggs should not cluck loudly!
At a conference organized by the Media Criticism Association titled «What Kind of Media Policy Does Switzerland Need?», FDP National Council member Filippo Leutenegger stated: «In recent years, publishers have neglected journalism.» He expressed regret over this. Guest commentary by Hans Stutz, freelance journalist.
The accusation came from an unexpected source; if a publisher had been present, he would probably have felt a shot in the back. Indeed, for an SRG critic who wants to restrict its public service mandate, this is a devastating statement. How can he justify the proposed online advertising ban for the SRG - and also further SRG restrictions - if the private media providers only offer editorial fare?
One might ask: Are there still publishers in Helvetia? After all, the publishing houses have been transformed into media companies, managed by rapper-splitters, even if the companies are not listed on the stock exchange. But it is also a fact that the five large Swiss media groups now control around 90 percent of the newspaper and magazine market, as well as local radio and television stations. One question arises: Is this still market concentration or is it already oligarchy? And where - locally and regionally - are there other journalistic voices? And do the private media providers guarantee the necessary basis "for the free formation of opinion" - as the Federal Constitution demands of "radio and television" - and as should also be demanded of the print media? In the private media, however, the SRG critics currently hold sway.
Rolf Probala, once a singer-songwriter with a guitar, then an SRG employee, later Head of University Communications at ETH, now a "consultant", recently claimed that SRG could no longer meet "the demands of a public service" on its own. He was referring to "broadcasts that are well made in themselves" but lack "continuity and relevance". Although he did not specify his criticism, he knew a remedy. SRG should massively slim down: only "news and information programs that are important for the formation of political opinion and the cohesion of Switzerland". He wants to outsource the rest, "to publishers as well as small media companies that are founded by institutions specifically for this purpose". Of course, there is another way of reading this: The SRG editorial offices are doing their job well and that is why they are now to be booted out so that companies and other institutions can gain more direct access to the providers of editorial vessels.
Probala's proposal is not far removed from that of Gerhard Schwarz, former NZZ business editor and now director of the business think tank Avenir Suisse. As the "most consistent solution", Schwarz wants to "dispense with a public broadcaster altogether and turn SRG into a private company". And the public service? The state would have to "use an appropriate agency to order everything that it would like to offer the people as a public service from private producers of program content and then give it to the stations free of charge or at a particularly low price." A kind of perpetuum mobile for the publishers and the right-wing bourgeoisie, the publishers would be rid of a competitor and would receive low-cost content, while the right-wing bourgeoisie could defame the content as "state propaganda".
The media are already happy to be served with editorial content at low cost. A Greenpeace representative reported at the conference: In the past, NGOs could have drawn the attention of media professionals to abuses. They would then have investigated further. Today, NGOs have to carry out the research themselves. Interest groups can also exploit the shortage of resources in editorial offices by producing their own programs. The Swiss Drugstore Association is currently looking for a "radio journalist". From spring 2012, the druggists want to broadcast a "weekly health program" on various local radio stations in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland, which they will plan and produce themselves. Not a public service, but a commercial service.
Where do Swiss media companies get the chutzpah to make so much noise about SRG's online presence? (A chicken that only delivers small eggs shouldn't be clucking loudly!) And further: shouldn't there also be a need for print titles organized under public law, financed by licence fees - so that print titles can also "contribute competently to education and cultural development, to the free formation of opinion" (Federal Constitution)?
