Press Council outraged by statements by Somm and Lebrument
The Swiss Press Council has reacted with bewilderment to remarks made by *Baz* Editor-in-Chief Markus Somm and Publisher-President Hanspeter Lebrument. In interviews, they had called into question the distinction between editorial content and advertising.
Such statements "are dangerous and undermine the credibility of the media," the Press Council said Tuesday. It said the journalists' code stipulates that journalists should avoid "any form of commercial advertising" and not accept "any conditions from advertisers." Markus Somm had said in April on Radio 1's "Roger vs. Markus" program, "I can't expect an advertiser to place an ad if he's being danced around on the nose all the time." That's the deal with his clients, he said. "There is a measure of criticism that is right and there is a kind of one-sidedness that no longer works." In this case, he said, he can make a Advertisement boycott only support, said Somm (Werbewoche.ch reported). Hanspeter Lebrument, for his part, was quoted in mid-April in the "NZZ am Sonntag" as saying: "A clean separation between the advertising market and the editorial part of a newspaper has become much more difficult than it was twenty years ago, when the financial situation allowed editorial independence to take precedence over everything." At the plenary session on May 24, the Press Council now expressed its "disapproval and incomprehension" that leading figures of the Swiss Media Publishers Association allowed themselves to be carried away by such statements, even if the economic situation was currently difficult. The independence of the editorial staff and the clear separation of editorial and advertising are fundamental pillars of the media's credibility and its raison d'être, he said. "To call these fundamental principles" into question, he said, was a "dangerous aberration." (SDA)
