Swiss media are under the influence of international NGOs

04.10.2024 | www.kla.tv/30665

The Swiss Media Publishers Association is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. It unites over 100 private media companies. Leading media groups are also among its members. The association describes the function of the Swiss media as follows: "Independent media are indispensable for a direct democracy like Switzerland. The private Swiss media report critically and independently on politics, business and society." The association's principles sound promising. But how successfully are they implemented? What is the true state of media diversity and the independence of Swiss media companies? Fallacy: Media diversity in Switzerland If you analyze the press market, you can see that there is a large selection of different newspaper titles in Switzerland. However, these almost always belong to one of the four dominant market players. One of these is the TX Group, formerly known as Tamedia. It owns the newspapers Tagesanzeiger, 20 Minuten, Der Landbote, Basler Zeitung as well as Berner Zeitung and SonntagsZeitung, to name just a few. In 2020, the group had a market share of 46% of the total readership in German-speaking Switzerland and even 69% in French-speaking Switzerland. The market concentration of newspaper owners in Switzerland is one of the highest in Europe, as an Oxford study showed in 2016. Switzerland was placed on a par with countries such as South Africa, Turkey and Russia. A similar picture emerges not only in the press market, but in the entire media landscape. Only five major players dominate the market. They have a considerable influence on the dissemination of information and opinion formation in the country. These five media groups together control an estimated 70% of the entire media market, which means a significant concentration of overall media power. Fallacy: Independence of the Swiss media Critical voices have been warning for years that a large number of Swiss media are connected in the transatlantic network. As an infographic by Swiss Policy Research shows, there are links with the German Atlantic Bridge, the Bilderberg Conference and NATO, to name just a few connections. It is also known that those in charge of the Swiss media are trained as young up-and-coming managers by international NGOs. For example, Felix R. Graf, CEO of the NZZ media group, and the former SRG Director General Roger de Weck are both “Young Global Leaders” of the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF for short). The well-known SRF presenter Arthur Honegger and the NZZ correspondents Niklaus Nuspliger and Marie-Astrid Langer are “Young Leaders” of the American Swiss Foundation. It should be mentioned in passing that the Swiss news agency Keystone-SDA handed over its entire German-language foreign service to the German agency DPA at the beginning of 2020, which in turn cooperates with the US news agency Associated Press. In summary, it can be stated that a large proportion of the Swiss media are integrated into international networks. Kla.TV has already reported in numerous programs that these interrelationships have a negative impact on independent reporting. Among other things, the global influence of the US think tank Council on Foreign Relations on all of the world's leading news agencies was highlighted. In a recent article, the educational platform "uncut-news" warns that the interrelationships of Swiss media with international networks can lead to one-sided reporting. This could result in critical and dissenting opinions being suppressed in the country. An example of this was the reporting during the COVID pandemic. Instead of reporting in a balanced and independent manner, the Swiss media players mentioned above have tried to portray the diverse reporting of sincere educational movements as implausible. This despite the fact that they have campaigned to ensure that critical opinions are also heard and that an open dialogue is conducted. Dear viewers, if the media fail as the fourth power in the state, then it becomes a civic duty to pass on what is little heard from the people to the people.

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Sources/Links: Verlegerverband Schweizer Medien – Grundsätze Medienpolitik https://www.schweizermedien.ch/politik/grundsatze-medienpolitik
Statistiken zu Zeitungen und Zeitschriften in der Schweiz https://de.statista.com/themen/3844/zeitungen-und-zeitschriften-in-der-schweiz/#topicOverview
Oxford-Studie publiziert von The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2020/nov/13/australia-newspaper-ownership-is-among-the-most-concentrated-in-the-world
Swiss Policy Research: Wie sind Schweizer Medien in transatlantische Netzwerke eingebunden? https://swprs.org/netzwerk-medien-schweiz/
https://swprs.org/wef-young-global-leaders/
https://www.weforum.org/people/felix-r-graf/
https://archive.ph/20200706185935/https://www.americanswiss.org/news/arthur-honegger-spotlight/
https://archive.ph/20200706190039/https://www.americanswiss.org/news/niklaus-nuspliger-spotlight/
https://www.nzz.ch/impressum/marie-astrid-langer-ld.665515
https://www.admin.ch/gov/de/start/dokumentation/medienmitteilungen.msg-id-70400.html
https://www.kleinreport.ch/news/keystone-sda-streicht-eigenen-auslanddienst-93855/
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone-SDA
https://www.presseportal.ch/de/pm/100017805/100728303
Uncut-news: Drei Viertel der Schweizer Medien unter Einfluss internationaler NGOs https://uncutnews.ch/drei-viertel-der-schweizer-medien-unter-einfluss-internationaler-ngos/