UBI rejects complaints against "Arena" with historian Ganser
In the opinion of the UBI, the «Arena» program «Trump’s War on the Media» does not constitute a violation of the Radio and Television Act. The audience was able to form its own opinion on the topic—despite the unfair treatment of historian Daniele Ganser.
The Independent Complaints Authority for Radio and Television (UBI) reached this decision on Friday afternoon during a public consultation in Bern. However, the decision was only reached with a casting vote by the chair, as the panel was still divided after around two hours of discussion. Most members agreed that the "Arena" broadcast of 24 February 2017 had several journalistic shortcomings. As previously criticized by the SRG ombudsman, the way presenter Jonas Projer dealt with his guest, historian and journalist Daniele Ganser, was particularly criticized. The insertion of an e-mail from Ganser to an SRF employee during the broadcast caused a particularly large amount of criticism, although the historian had not been informed of this in advance. This included the fact that this email was initially only available to the audience in abridged form. In addition, several UBI members criticized the impression that the presenter wanted to question Ganser's credibility as a media critic.
Own opinion possible
However, the task of the appeal body was to examine whether the program violated the Radio and Television Act (RTVA). The central question was whether the audience had been able to form their own opinion on the topic of "Trump's war on the media" on the basis of the discussion program. According to the program, the show wanted to explore the question of whether there are good reasons to distrust the media. It also wanted to debate whether the media is more important than ever in exposing Trump's lies and whether the Swiss media can still be trusted. Those who watched the program were able to form their own opinion on the topic of the credibility of the media based on the discussion with the studio guests and the prepared contributions, the UBI concluded succinctly. With this decision, it rejected a total of six complaints about the "Arena" program in question. One of the complainants was the historian Daniele Ganser. The UBI's decision can be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.
