The reduction of staff leads to a reduction in diversity of news sources. There are only a few publishing houses left that can afford foreign correspondents and regional offices. In other words, newspapers and other media strongly depend on a few information sources such as the Swiss wire service. There is neither time nor personnel to countercheck the information they get. The public broadcaster SRG SSR and the quality newspaper neue zürcher zeitung still count on their foreign correspondents. Swiss radio maintains regional offices.
Working pressure and working constraints have increased drastically under the current media crisis. This results in journalists succumbing more easily to PR material from stakeholders. Powerful actors from politics and industry bring their interests into the media without difficulties (see also Grossenbacher 2010: 133f.). Furthermore, journalists increasingly use the Internet for their stories and neglect investigation outside the newsroom. Diversity also suffers due to the collaboration among the different newspapers and news editors. Content syndications at different levels are common. newspapers take over whole sections or single articles from other newspapers. Especially on the level of national news and very strongly on the level of international news, the performance of most newspapers has diminished. Readers get the same news about national or international politics in almost all newspapers. Since 2010, there has been only one national news wire service left. The Schweizerische Depeschenagentur (SDA – in French ATS, in Italian ATI) provides material in three languages. Most media are clients of the SDA. According to the interviewees, the SDA has been losing ground as a controlling authority. Instead, media products from the same media company are being taken as a reference and a source. The introduction of integrated newsrooms also results in information sources being used for several outputs.
