Swiss Media Competence vs. Fake News

Fög has been investigating the reporting quality of Swiss information media, such as SRG and NZZ formats for over 10 years. The understanding of quality was based on democratic performance functions, for only the help of Swiss information media makes it possible to create a public sphere. Swiss information media generally includes Swiss newspapers, magazines, television and radio programs, as well as news websites. To this end, they should produce well-balanced reporting, so that people can get an idea of different points of view. In short, the information media reflect the public discourse with the highest possible quality.

From Hard News to Human-Interest-Topics

According to researchers, the offers of the Swiss media rarely lose quality; and in addition, not all quality dimensions are equally affected. On the one hand, factual reporting, editorial contribution, and transparency of sources show a consistently high level. On the other hand, the Swiss media loses relevance and diversity. Losses were also recorded in the areas of classification, relevance of contributions, and diversity of content. An increasingly growing factor is the “Soft-News”, which are reports of lifestyle-topics, celebrities, and other entertainment contributions; whereas in the “Hard-News” section, a shift in the focus of reporting has been taking place. This shift is moving away from macrosocial contexts to a focus on people. Contributions on human-interest topics have especially increased, that is to say, content about everyday topics or other emotional topics, on which anyone can have a say. Expert Jörg Schneider, associate researcher of the fög, supplements to the study’s statements: “Swiss information media are trying to react to Social media by showing more positions and opinions”. The shift from hard news to human-interest news can be considered as the main reason for the loss of diversity in the Swiss media.

Values are Important

Luckily, not all dimensions are equally affected by the loss of quality. In terms of professionalism, the Swiss media do particularly well, and this professionalism is important for a foundation of trust between a medium and the consumer. “NZZ”, for instance, writes that the Swiss media should place more emphasis on credibility and dialogue, since the readers are, after all, “partners at eye level”. Ultimately, readers are most willing to subscribe to a newspaper if there is mutual trust. To achieve this, the medium must represent values similar to those of the reader. As an example, this can succeed if the medium shows proximity to the reader. This becomes even more important in times of Facebook and Twitter.

The medium should not be perceived as an unapproachable organization, but as a friend, who can provide important information. However, the expert expresses the reservation, that there must be a difference between journalist and user. The journalist should be less of a friend, and more of a trustworthy professional in communications. “Professional journalism is important in setting standards for public communication. Thus, the user must be aware that they are entering a public sphere as a communicator, as soon as they share comments or other contributions on social media.” says Jörg Schneider.

Time and Money Decide

Opinion contributions, such as comments or columns, have increased. In general, this is not a bad development, but if it happens at the expense of research, it can become problematic. In concrete terms, this means: As background reporting declines, opinion-oriented formats increase. Such a development should be treated with caution, as there is a growing danger in promoting these much less resource-intensive opinion formats. Due to the omnipresent cost-cutting measures, the high level of resources required in classical journalistic research can in some cases no longer be guaranteed. This can have negative effects if it is at the expense of background reporting. Jörg Schneider agrees with this statement: “The resources are missing!”. So, the question the media industry should ask themselves is, how can we channel more resources into journalism? In addition, Schneider says, it is important to create an awareness of news quality. The expert could well imagine a mixed form in the future, in which, for example, some articles are paid for while others are provided by the Public Service as a basic service.

Saving at the Cost of Classification

The cost-saving measures of the editorial offices are therefore particularly noticeable in the dimension of classification. The crux of the matter is simply hidden in the fact that you can get fake news cheaply, whereas thoroughly researched offers cost money. Thanks to the interplay of various dimensions, the quality of the Swiss media can nevertheless maintain itself to a certain extent. Ultimately, journalistic resources can be seen as a decisive factor for quality offers. Based on that, it can be concluded that it is extremely important to provide information journalism with enough financial and human capital. This is the only way in which it is possible for information journalism to fulfil its responsibility to society.

Media Competence – a School Subject for Life

The fög of the University in Zurich takes even another step further and wants to teach more media competence in school with its project Newsup.ch. For this purpose, they launched a new project for high school students. Therefore, the fög puts its own editorial staff together, which is instructed to supply appropriate teaching material to teachers. By using the provided material, teachers should be able to explain pupils the difference between fake news and journalistic information using illustrative examples. “In light of the new media and their provided wealth of information, not only the young need media competence, but all users do,” says Jörg Schneider. Thus, users themselves would be able to verify the truthfulness of the information.

With this project, the fög wants to share its research results more with the interested public and make them accessible to them. However, it is primarily intended to reach young people. Today’s young people have grown up with their generation-specific use of media. They no longer inform themselves through TV or newspapers, but mostly through news sites, blogs or social media. The danger of social media lies in the fact that you only obtain limited and filtered information. When done in this way, reporting becomes quite biased.

Distinguish Real News from Fake News

In order to form a well-founded opinion, adolescents should question their own usage behavior, collect knowledge about our media system, verify sources and classify information. Concretely, one can summarize this under the term “media competence”. Furthermore, the fög wants to bring the advantages of being well-informed closer to the adolescents. The young people, who on the one hand have turned away from news journalism and, on the other hand, are no longer reached by the outdated news formats, (which account for about 56% of the 16-19 year old’s), should again learn an understanding of the added value and importance of such offers. So that, in times of information overload regarding the coronavirus, they can find out for themselves which information is more likely fake news, and which is not.