The Swiss Media Publishers Association is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year.
It brings together 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, the economy and society."
The association's principles sound promising. But how successfully are they being implemented?
What is the actual state of media diversity and the independence of Swiss media companies?
Fallacy: Media diversity in Switzerland
An analysis of the press market reveals 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 Tages-Anzeiger, 20 Minuten, Der Landbote, Basler Zeitung, Berner
Zeitung and SonntagsZeitung, to name but a few.
In 2020, the Group had a market share of 46 % of the total readership in German-speaking Switzerland
and as much as 69 % in French-speaking Switzerland.
The market concentration of newspaper owners in Switzerland is one of the highest in Europe, as an Oxford study revealed in 2016.
Switzerland was ranked roughly on a par with countries such as South Africa, Turkey and Russia.
The picture is similar not only in the press market, but in the media landscape as a whole.
Only five major players dominate the market.
They have a considerable influence on the dissemination of information and the formation of opinion in the country.
Together, these five media groups are estimated to control over 70% of the entire media market, which means
a considerable 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 to the transatlantic network.
As an infographic from Swiss Policy Research shows, there are links with the German Atlantik-Brücke, the
Bilderberg Conference and NATO, to name just a few.
It is also known that young leaders in the Swiss media are being trained by international NGOs.
For example, Felix R. Graf, CEO of the NZZ media group, and former SRG Director General Roger de Weck are both "Young Global
Leaders" of the Davos World Economic Forum, or 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 German-language foreign service
completely 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 said that the majority of Swiss media are integrated into international networks.
Kla.TV has already reported on the negative impact of these links on independent reporting in numerous programs.
Among other things, the global influence of the US think tank Council on Foreign Relations on all
the world's leading news agencies was highlighted.
In a recent article, the educational platform "uncut-news" warns that the Swiss media's links to
international networks can lead to one-sided reporting.
This could result in critical and dissenting opinions being suppressed in the country.
One example of this was the reporting during the COVID pandemic.
Instead of reporting in a balanced and independent manner, the aforementioned Swiss media players have tried
to portray the multifaceted reporting of sincere educational movements as untrustworthy.
This is in spite of the fact that they have worked to ensure that critical opinions are
also heard and that an open dialog is conducted.
Dear viewers, when the media fail as the fourth estate in the state, it becomes a civic duty to
disseminate what little is heard from the people to the people.