Our current findings and statements from interviews show that media professionals try to play down or justify the influence of external stakeholders. According to their statements, they feel pressured by both politics and business. At the same time, they confirm that they can successfully resist this pressure and underline their independence and autonomy. However, a critical look at the interaction between media organisations and powerful stakeholders does reveal some dependencies. Even seemingly powerful and independent media organisations are instrumentalised by stakeholders or can be instrumentalised from outside out of self-interest. Moreover, the question remains open as to the role and status of the media in Swiss society in general and Swiss democracy in particular: whether, or to what extent, media organisations and media professionals themselves represent a power factor – possibly illegitimate.
The attitude of journalists is contradictory and unclear. On the one hand, they complain about the intrusive attempts of political personnel to gain the attention of the media. On the other hand, they also report a dependence on “good stories” from representatives and decision-makers in politics and business. They are even prepared, on a case-by-case basis, to engage in campaign journalism or to jump on such campaigns as free riders. Such actions cause a stir, promise controversy and, moreover, are well received by the public. Furthermore, media professionals often seem to have a close relationship with certain power circles. At any rate, the president of the Swiss Press Council criticises this in the current annual report and states that proximity to the economic and state power centres is not conducive to the credibility of journalism (Schweizer Presserat, 2019).
Ideally, powerful stakeholder groups in the close and wide environment of editorial offices such as business enterprises, political parties, business associations, trade unions, the national churches, et cetera have no influence on editorial decisions that are made on a daily basis. From the perspective of media professionals, any representatives who are on the board of directors of public and private media organisations will be wary of interfering in the day-to-day business of publishing. However, this division of labour is dissolved, where private commercial media companies such as Ringier, NZZ, TX Group, and CH Media are concerned. Individual board members, including the executive committee as publisher, co-owner or consultant, indeed do exert influence on journalistic decisions. Mr. Wanner and Mr. Supino are chairmen of the Board of Directors and CEOs in their respective media groups and exert a strong influence on the editorial departments. Both are also active in leading positions in the VSM. While the NZZ Mediengruppe and CH Media are almost exclusively active in publishing, theTX Group and Ringier are actual digital groups and realise their profits primarily outside of journalistic media. Moreover, the Ringier Group and the newspaper La Liberté have well-known owners or business partners from other economic sectors such as insurance companies, banks, infrastructure facilities, et cetera. In addition to pressures built into them, external influence on editorial offices, and media content from stakeholders – for example, from corporate communications and public affairs activities – is also part of everyday experiences of business. Nevertheless, the determined silence of companies and service providers often has an effect. Even scandalous stories can often be thwarted without major reputational damage. Additionally, disrupted communication between stakeholders and media organisations can easily be absorbed by another media organisation. The former editor-in-chief of the NZZ am Sonntag (Müller, 2020), for example, complains in his media-critical column that an incumbent member of the cantonal government has succeeded in bringing about an image correction in several of Zurich’s leading media, even though she has recently come under considerable pressure as cantonal health director. In any case, the Schweizer Illustrierte was close at hand when the magistrate brought out the yoga mat in the cafeteria and, in the wake of her teacher, threw herself into the warrior-2 pose (Ogul, 2020). Sonntagsblick from the same media company doubled one day later and the editor-in-charge described the government councillor as a “media professional” and a “media whisperer”. For political journalist Reza Faki (2020), these “awards” are proof that she possessed the necessary strength to hold the highest political office of a Federal Councillor.
The problematic aspects of this mutual instrumentalisation are usually played down or considered “courant normal” by both the media professionals themselves and political staff. Manifest attempts at influence from outside – in whatever form – can draw attention to an already existing “embedding” and “accompaniment” and at the same time strengthen the position of the medium itself in the struggle for attention and power. This kind of “cooperation” of mutually coordinated interventions in everyday work is constitutive to all intermediary organisations. For commercial and public media companies, business models are based to varying degrees on advertising and sponsoring is an additional factor, and accordingly entail more-or-less drastic guidelines and dependencies that significantly structure the “embedding”. It is not the journalistic independence of the newsrooms that ensures the media companies’ sustainability, but their finely balanced economic and political integration into society with its many and varied mutual contacts, controls, and dependencies.
All leading public and commercial media groups are economically and politically embedded. All major media groups are part of the Swiss economy and politically close to the economic liberal policy of the political party FDP. During the loosening of the Covid-19 crisis, the chief editors of all leading media outlets, from the Tages-Anzeiger, Blick, NZZ to the CH Media, argued for the economy and against restraints by the federal authorities.
Media professionals not only work and interact in a private environment, but are primarily embedded in a media organisation, in political, economic, and socio-political structures. In the course of their professional activities, they have to face, even fulfil, the often-contradictory demands of information sources, their editorial management and colleagues, or the business and production conditions of their specific media organisation. Media workers move between autonomy, influences, and dependencies, both on the cognitive and the acting level in the role of the wage-earners. The autonomy of media workers is estimated to be highest for the specific presentation of a story with 86 per cent. However, the setting of topics is also determined by the editorial management, and full autonomy falls to 78 per cent (Lauener & Keel, 2019). Depending on the type of media and hierarchy level, the perceived autonomy can decrease. And what about the perceived influences from outside?
At the individual level, more than half of the media professionals surveyed, attributed the greatest importance to journalistic ethics (61%), time pressure (54%), access to information (51%), personal values and convictions, (50%) and available resources (50%). Editorial guidelines and superiors were still considered to be very strong influences by 31 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively, among those surveyed. Colleagues in the company (20%), management, (11%) and owners (7%) were even less likely to be organisation-related influences. Business influences with regard to audience research and market data were rated as very strong by only 13 per cent of those surveyed. The influence of entrepreneurial profit expectations was rated as extreme and very strong by only 9 per cent of the respondents (Lauener & Keel, 2019). The influence of public relations, political, and economic interest groups is relatively a lot less than the business influences. Influences of private and professional reference groups amounted to 13 per cent for feedback from the public, 12 per cent for competing media, 10 per cent for friends, acquaintances, and relatives, and four per cent for colleagues from other media (Lauener & Keel, 2019).
Overall, the current survey results show that a clear majority of media professionals in Switzerland enjoy a high degree of autonomy according to their own perceptions. They feel that they are guided above all by professional and personal convictions, and are influenced by editorial structures, time and financial resources, and challenges in accessing information.
This individual, subjective view of journalists, thus, in contrast to the results of scientific research and parts of the public debates, especially in the times of Covid-19. It can be assumed that neither all influences were perceived, nor all perceived influences were articulated, by the media workers. Many perceived influences are also seen as coherent, legitimate, and constitutive for everyday work; these are, by no means only problematic as regards with autonomy. In many cases, media workers are not only employed as henchmen, they also see themselves as henchmen in the service of their own interests and those of third parties.
There are also political actors – as one editor-in-chief in public radio experiences – who assume that they have a “right to an antenna”. Ironically, in times of the currently raging pandemic, the Swiss Federal Council does indeed have the right, in a state of emergency, to make announcements and recommendations in public broadcast under its own direction, albeit separately from SRG SSR programming.
