SRG does not fulfil its obligations

The abuse of its monopoly status for political interference as exemplified by Brexit

There is only one thing that was made abundantly clear by SRF’s broadcasts about Brexit: The enormous propaganda campaign that has long deviated from a fair, democratic news coverage.

Rl. Viewed objectively, by Britain’s exit from the EU, the Federal Council has gained new and bigger room for negotiations with Brussels about the mass immigration initiative MEI, that now, it should use offensively. Maintaining an independent course of action against the EU, in many respects has become much easier for our country than it was before the British voters’ decision. The United Kingdom once again is able to take part in EFTA and thus, economic opportunities for Switzerland could expand. One shouldn’t forget that Britain is connected to the Commonwealth.
The British voters’ decision to leave an undemocratically run EU, is more than understandable, not least due to:

“uncontrolled” mass immigration, brought upon by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s sole decision-making,
“uncontrolled” increase of monetary assets by ECB’s president and former banker for Goldman Sachs, Mario Draghi, with its unforeseeable consequences for the whole of Europe,
“uncontrolled” negotiations between the EU and the US about TTIP that are predicted to sustainably damage the European economy, should TTIP be put in effect,
“uncontrolled” EU foreign policy against Russia with unforeseeable consequences for both world peace as well as the economic growth of many countries.

But how did our fee-financed media report on this democratic vote cast by the majority of British voters?
After the publication of the voting results regarding Britain’s exit from the EU on 27 June, one maybe could have expected Swiss media to express restrained delight, but at least a sigh of relief. Instead, we were treated with a news reporter from Great Britain, himself on the verge of tears, his report saturated by emotions such as sadness, anger and melancholy in what can hardly be called an informative, much less an objective display (SRF, 27 June). More SRF news coverage from Brussels, London or Berlin all shared the thrust that British voters would have to face the apparently expected negative consequences that, of course, had to have resulted directly from their “misbehaviour”, all on their own. Therein, one could hear the thinly veiled threat not to entertain any similar ideas of an exit from the EU. Supposedly, this was the intention behind a high number of programmes produced by fee-financed Swiss Radio Broadcasting Service that were dumped on the contributors within the days that followed. As a fee-paying consumer of Swiss state media, one could not escape the feeling that the programmes broadcast had been commissioned directly from Brussels or Berlin. Shame on you!
It has become apparent that under europhile Roger de Weck’s leadership, SRG no longer openly advocates for a EU membership like it used to only a couple of years ago, but that those responsible for the programme have entered a new phase in the process of psychologically manipulating opinions.
This is done by constantly linking factual issues to emotions, certain terms are charged either negatively or positively and subconscious lines of argumentation are being created. A true object lesson on the manipulation of opinions. A good example of this was provided when the British right to self-determination, to decide on immigration into their own country, was linked to the negative term “xenophobia” (10 vor 10, 28 June). There are many more examples like this.
It would, however, be the State Media Authority’s responsibility to present arguments and opinions openly in order to enable the citizens of a democracy – and even moreso those of a direct democracy – to make objective decisions or to be able to understand political occurrences.
The actual purpose is being neglected in favour of “titty-tainment culture” with the subcutaneous creation of “clusters of a specific opinion” in order to prepare for possible decisions of both domestic and foreign “elites”.
This is not the SRG’s job! Not even if other so-called “leading media” decided to dance to the transatlantic drum. On the contrary – now more than ever, this would call for a publicly fee-financed broadcasting company to function as an objective opposite pole. •