Even if there are no formal rules to separate the newsroom and management, all interviewees ensured there was a separation and denied any interference from the owner as well as from the shareholders. The interviewees pointed to the fact that they experience different needs (from the publishing and journalistic side), which sometimes leads to friction – like in other companies. For the interviewees, the journalistic principle always comes first when media content is involved.
However, in some cases, the publishing house manager and the editor-in-chief meet at regular conferences. All editors told us that they have never experienced any interference by management in editorial decisions. If we take a closer look at the board of management, we can see that there is nearly no representation of journalists. This may also be a disadvantage, because the administrative board has little knowledge of journalism. A former editor-in-chief puts it this way: “The administrative board has no journalistic competence. They do not know what good journalism consists of” (Medienwoche.ch).
Editors-in-chiefs are more involved in economic and strategic management than they were in the past. The public broadcaster SRG SSR has a greater separation of management from the journalistic work than this is the case in the commercial media. The heads of the newsrooms are less involved in strategic decisions. They carry the journalistic responsibility.
Even if none of the selected media has internal rules to safeguard their independence, it can be concluded that journalists can normally decide independently on editorial matters. Altogether, the newsrooms of the Swiss media seem to be sufficiently autonomous.
