Mengis Medien reorganizes editorial offices

Mengis Medien is the publisher of the Walliser Bote and the RhoneZeitung and operates the local radio station RRO as well as the online portals Rro.ch and 1815.ch. The editorial teams will be reorganized on 1 January 2019. Cooperation is to be strengthened through departments. "The individual editorial teams will remain in place and will continue to be headed by the respective editors-in-chief. New cross-editorial departments will be introduced to promote collaboration and exploit synergies," says Armin Bregy, Head of Journalism at Mengis Medien. Five departments have been defined: Politics, Business, Sport, Culture and Society/Mixed.

Journalistic varieties
Topics are discussed and implemented across all media in the various departments. The respective department heads work together with the editors-in-chief to define which medium will cover a topic, how reporting will be organized and which channels will be used. This cross-editorial cooperation is also intended to strengthen the journalistic quality of Mengis Medien. "For example, if an article is published in the RhoneZeitung, the topic can be debated on the radio in the evening. Or rro provides the news and the Walliser Bote the background. All sorts of variations are possible," says Bregy. Diversity of opinion is upheld. "We are aware that the Mengis media house brings together a great deal of journalistic strength in Upper Valais. It is therefore all the more important that our reporting continues to take all political tendencies into account."

The department heads
The Mengis media house has been able to recruit both established and fresh talent to head up the five departments: David Biner will take over the "Politics" section, Werner Koder will head the business section. Both are already members of the WB editorial team. Hans-Peter Berchtold, head of the WB sports editorial team, will take over the cross-editorial sports department. Journalist Mathias Gottet is responsible for "Society/Mixed". Nathalie Benelli has been appointed to the "Culture" department. She is returning to Mengis Medien after eight years as head of cultural promotion at Kultur Wallis.

New moderation manager
Joel Bieler will take over as head of the RRO presenter team from January 1, 2019. Bieler was infected with the radio virus at an early age. He was already working regularly as a freelancer for RRO during his apprenticeship. From 2011, he underwent radio producer training at the local station and learned the radio trade from the ground up. In recent years, Bieler has become one of the station's defining voices as a presenter on the morning program.