The Swiss Press Council monitors compliance with the code of ethics applicable to all media professionals, specifically the “Declaration of the Duties and Rights of Journalists”. The Press Council comments on questions of journalistic professional ethics, either on its own initiative or in response to complaints. The barriers to entry are low: any person can lodge a complaint; the procedure is free of charge. The Press Council judges these through the code of ethics drawn up by the professional associations themselves. In its decision, the Press Council assesses and justifies whether and why a journalistic report in the press, radio, television or Internet has violated the journalist’s code of ethics – or not. The decision can be taken note of – or ignored. No sanctions are provided for.
In addition, the Press Council drafts protocol statements and guidelines for the “Declaration of the Duties and Rights of Journalists”. The code consists merely of ethically binding “shall” norms and is not a legal norm. Compliance with these rights and obligations is voluntary for media professionals and publishers and cannot be enforced by any legal means.
At company level, there are also editorial statutes and publishing guidelines that are set by media companies. Compliance with these guidelines is legally binding as part of the employment contract. In practice, therefore, there are significant differences in form and content between the code of ethics, editorial statutes and publishing guidelines. For example, media professionals can neither demand a collective agreement or the fulfilment of working conditions from media companies that enable or at least facilitate media-ethical action, nor can they claim demands that impinge on individual employment relationships. This voluntary self-organisation of the media industry seems to have little effect in day-to-day business, even though the code has been in force for over 40 years.
In a longer academic article, Silke Fürst and Philomen Schönhagen (2018) conclude that the self-regulation of the Swiss media is incomplete and does not meet the current challenges. This assessment comes as no surprise, because this is what the industry wants. Press codex, editorial statutes, and journalistic guidelines are primarily a business management and control instrument.
Against the background of the freedom of the press and economic freedom granted to the media, binding management, and control measures in the interest of the public and democracy are not binding on media companies. Self-organisation measures predominantly aim to protect the company’s own business interests and optimise internal management. To speak of self-regulation in this context is inappropriate because the rules are developed under the company’s own direction, are voluntary and non-binding – and compliance or non-compliance is largely without consequences. Readers and media consumers are promised compliance with certain media-ethical standards and journalistic quality, but citizens cannot participate in the negotiation processes and are left out. Participation and pluralism also fall by the wayside. Press codex cannot fulfil many goals and expectations at all, not least those that communication science brings to the media. This raises questions on why an undemocratically established public sphere should be able and willing to provide media and infrastructures that are appropriate for democracies.
In any case, the press codex has not played an important role in the looming financing crisis of journalism; it has barely strengthened the social legitimacy and credibility of the media or promoted the independence of journalism, or even, improved the business model of commercial media. Further, it is unclear whether the press codex is capable of fulfilling an alibi function or are suitable as a public relations instrument. Currently and in the past, the press codex has always been and, continues to be, helpless in the face of business challenges. For Fürst and Schönhagen, therefore, the press codex is far from suited to provide answers to problems that have arisen in the course of the growing media concentration since the 1970s (Fürst & Schönhagen, 2018).
