By Kayla Conboy, Alana Kiker, and Shelby Kimball
Switzerland may be known for the sweetness of its chocolate, but its media presence is less about being “sweet” and more about keeping citizens informed.
Thomas Von Grunigen is a reporter for Rundschau, a political magazine, in Switzerland. He said the Switzerland media is small, but reaches a broad audience in the country.
“The Swiss media market is very small,” Grunigen said. “With roughly 8 million inhabitants, divided into four language areas, German, French, Italian and Romanic.”
Compared to the United States, the Swiss media operates differently.
Grunigen said Swiss media is run by a public-funded network called SRG. The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation provides media content in the four official languages of the country.
Grunigen said since it is expensive to produce quality news for television, nearly every citizen must pay an annual fee to support the operation that helps the media perform like a privately owned company.
“The Swiss system, with a publicly funded television network,” Grunigen said, “allows us to do the type of quality journalism privately owned companies would not be able or willing to produce in such a small market.”
Grunigen said he notices small differences when he travels to the United States. He said prime-time news in the U.S. is not as hard-hitting as the news in Switzerland. He said he believes news organizations treat politics and current events as NFL games rather than serious issues.
“That’s the downside of leaving television up to privately owned companies that care about revenue more than about journalism,” Grunigen said.
Grunigen said programs such as “60 Minutes” and some PBS documentaries are the exception.
Newspapers also dominate Swiss media. One newspaper in particular, 20 Minuten, circulates more than others. The 20 Minuten is a free paper, but it is the most successful due to the high amount of advertising revenue the paper receives.
Grunigen said this paper, and others like it, are popular with citizens who commute daily. He said these papers do not report in-depth news. Aside from free-of-charge newspapers, Grunigen said the country has some quality newspapers comparable to the New York Times and the Washington Post.
The government in Switzerland has little influence over the media.
“The freedom of the press is one of our basic civil rights” Grunigen said, “and viewed as an important pillar of our democratic society.”
Grunigen said even though the major television stations are publicly funded, the government has no control over content and does not have the authority to practice censorship. He said examples of this freedom can be seen on the investigative news shows he works for. He said they frequently criticize the government and other politicians.
With so many different media outlets producing news in multiple languages, the Swiss people stay informed.
Grunigen said that although the Swiss follow local and national news more closely, they also keep up with the news around the world.
“Swiss people also tend to be fairly interested in international news,” Grunigen said. “Global politics, in which the U.S. always plays a big role, is followed closely by many people.”
This article was contributed by Lea Hellmueller’s JOUR 4301: Future of Global Journalism class.
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