SWI swissinfo.ch 2024 Annual Report

SWI swissinfo.ch

Dear friends of SWI swissinfo.ch, dear Swiss Abroad, dear readers everywhere who are interested in Switzerland.

Global crises and power shifts over the past year have further shaken the foundations of the world order. Switzerland is one of the most globalised countries in the world, with multiple economic, political and cultural interdependencies, and cannot but be affected by this. While conflicts such as the war in Ukraine and the humanitarian disasters in the Middle East dominated the headlines, the Alpine nation again found itself torn between a sense of international responsibility and its historical neutrality. This tension came to the fore especially during its time as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, when it was at the heart of global decision-making processes. Meanwhile, the collapse of major bank Credit Suisse shook world trust in the Swiss financial sector.

Against this backdrop, SWI swissinfo.ch has a crucial role to play. On the one hand, it is a platform for the more than 813,000 Swiss citizens who live abroad, to whose specific needs and interests we cater in our reporting. On the other hand, SWI swissinfo.ch offers interested audiences around the world a multifaceted view of topics of concern to them, and for which we can highlight connections and draw international comparisons. Providing this perspective is more important today than ever before, in the face of the global rise of disinformation and threats to media freedom. If we did not project Switzerland’s voice and image abroad ourselves, then others would surely step in to interpret decisions and events in our country for us.

In 2024, SWI swissinfo.ch underwent a strategic reorganisation in order to better serve these two target groups. We thus restructured our editorial office, establishing dedicated teams focusing specifically on reporting for the Swiss Abroad and for an international audience interested in Switzerland.

This annual report provides an overview of the main issues that underpinned our work in 2024 and gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the work of our editorial teams.

Combating disinformation and fake news: protecting the truth

In 2024 at SWI swissinfo.ch we worked harder than ever to counter disinformation and strengthen trust in independent media. Our reporting in ten languages sheds light on current events, when necessary debunking the propaganda of authoritarian regimes, such as in Russia or China, and globally disseminated fake news.

We thus created formats specifically directed at audiences in countries where free media is reined in. In Russia, many Western news websites – including SWI swissinfo.ch – are blocked or hard to access. People can, however, still watch the video platform YouTube, which is accordingly widely used. Our “On the Record” format, which was created especially for YouTube, provides in-depth, detailed interviews, including with prominent figures from, or knowledgeable, about Russia – such as Swiss-based writer Mikhail Shishkin:

Russia is, of course, by no means the only country where freedom of the press is severely restricted. Many journalists at SWI swissinfo.ch hail from countries where the media is censored, persecuted or fully clamped down on. For World Press Freedom Day 2024, our staff shared some of their experiences, including what it’s like to be on the receiving end of direct attacks on media freedom:

A record year for democracy

Disinformation poses a massive threat to democracy. This was never truer than in the “super election year” 2024, when people went to the polls in around 75 countries – from the US to India, from Western Europe to Russia. Overall, more than half of the world’s population was called upon to vote – a record:

But by no means were all the elections free and fair. The presidential elections in the US, for instance, were accompanied by a surge in AI-generated fake news. Switzerland, too, is far from immune to the effects of disinformation:

While Switzerland is not impervious to fake news, it still serves as a role model with regard to democratic values and processes. It is also keen to share its expertise – as in Moldova, where Swiss funding supports a school subject, Education for Society, which promotes democracy, critical thinking and civic values:

Tailored reporting for Swiss Abroad

Around a tenth of Swiss citizens do not live in Switzerland. A core project for SWI swissinfo.ch in 2024 was the expansion of our targeted reporting for the Swiss Abroad, both with content of our own and from other channels of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), our parent company. Since September 1, 2024, we have had a dedicated editorial team focusing on the Swiss Abroad. They report on issues of concern to Swiss voters abroad, explain Swiss politics as specifically relevant to them and, in the busy 2024 voting year, kept them up to date on developments with our own four-language newsletter.

One key issue was the controversial vote on the pension initiatives, from which we drew five lessons:

Postal voting and digital communication have strengthened the political clout of the Swiss Abroad. Yet this same digitalisation is drastically changing their community and how it interacts. In 2024, the Swiss Abroad met for not only their 100^th but also their last joint congress in this format.

Promoting Switzerland’s image abroad

SWI swissinfo.ch is aimed not only at the Swiss Abroad but also at audiences with a general interest in Switzerland. As an international media from neutral Switzerland, the platform enjoys a high level of trust. This gives us a duty to critically examine different positions on current topics, draw international comparisons and provide Swiss perspectives. An important aspect of Switzerland’s role abroad was its two-year membership of the UN Security Council, which came to an end in 2024. Specialists in the field Lucile Maertens and Sara Hellmüller analysed for SWI swissinfo.ch just what a country like Switzerland can achieve in this forum:

International Geneva, as a hub for diplomatic and humanitarian cooperation, is central to Switzerland’s role on the international stage. We closely follow developments there in our reporting – for instance, in the podcast “Inside Geneva” by Imogen Foulkes, Geneva correspondent for SWI swissinfo.ch and the BBC. She regularly provides insights into the crises in the Middle East, including the escalation in Gaza, and explains how the UN acts as a mediator in global conflicts.

The podcast is produced in cooperation with the media network Genève Vision and the Geneva Graduate InstituteExternal link:

SWI swissinfo.ch not only follows these debates, but it also provides a platform for them. Thanks to automatic translation, people all around the world can join in discussions on different topics in ten languages. A recent example was the spirited exchange on Switzerland’s neutrality model:

The Swiss economy and global ties 

Covid-19, followed by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, have accelerated a structural trend, in which the globalisation of the past three decades is being redefined. On the one hand, Western countries, weary of the negative effects of open trade policies, are increasingly turning to populist and more protectionist measures. On the other hand, the Global South wants a different kind of globalisation: one that focuses on its interests.

These shifts also affect the many multinational companies based in Switzerland which procure raw materials around the globe and sell them worldwide.

In a series of articles, SWI swissinfo.ch looked at how the geopolitical situation is affecting Switzerland’s largest global companies – and how some of them are using this situation to their advantage. Take, for instance, the multi-billion-franc investments made by pharmaceutical company Novartis in Slovenia. These have helped make the country a key global player for generic and biopharmaceutical production, at a time when cheap Asian competitors increasingly dominate the market:

Numerous Swiss companies have close ties with global commodity chains, and a significant proportion of global trade flows through Switzerland. These links are often very opaque, however. In a widely acclaimed investigation, which was also taken up by the Swiss parliament, SWI swissinfo.ch scrutinised Swiss gold imports from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which have surged since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine:

Science and innovation: Swiss solutions to global problems

Through its research and innovation, Switzerland also contributes to solutions to global challenges. A key area is climate change. For example, a Swiss permafrost research team has developed an innovative method to quantify ice loss, providing important insight into the effects of climate change. The findings not only help to improve the prediction of such risks, but also to protect infrastructure in Alpine and Arctic regions.

Swiss research and solutions are also instrumental in completely different contexts, for example in Madagascar, where climate change is threatening cacao production with rising temperatures, irregular rainy seasons and soil erosion.

We took a closer look at a Swiss project that supports local communities through sustainable farming methods, reforestation and manual pollination in cacao cultivation. The goal of the initiative is to mitigate the threat posed by climate changes and boost the region’s resilience, while also helping ensure compliance with international standards, such as the EU’s requirements for deforestation-free supply chains:

Quality and recognition: our standards

2024 also saw the rapid take-off of artificial intelligence (AI), which not only plays a key role in the context of disinformation but is also shaking up the media industry. As a trusted media that is quoted and referenced up to 80 times a week and in 46 languages, at SWI swissinfo.ch we are fully aware of our responsibility to uphold the quality of our content. We have thus drawn up new guidelines for the responsible use of AI tools. Journalistic content at SWI swissinfo.ch is created, without exception, by humans. At the same time, we see AI as an opportunity to make work processes more efficient and we use it as a support tool in various areas, such as data analysis, translation and topic monitoring. Wherever AI has been used, we say so clearly. Any content created with the help of AI is carefully checked before publishing.

Not only do we ensure our quality through our internal processes, but we also regularly undergo critical assessment by external experts. Alongside independence, impartiality and balance, relevance is a key factor in quality journalism. In its annual statistics, published in the Yearbook Quality of the Media 2024External link, the Research Centre for the Public Sphere and Society of the University of Zurich awarded SWI swissinfo.ch the second-highest score of all Swiss online media, with 7.4 out of ten possible points, commending us as an outlet that “stands out for its quality in all respects”.

In 2025, SWI swissinfo.ch will be working on new projects, not least the launch of our redesigned app for the Swiss Abroad, with brand new functions and more content.

Here in Switzerland, the coming year will also be challenging on the political level. As part of its comprehensive savings programme, the federal government wants to discontinue funding for the SBC’s international mandate from 2027. At SWI swissinfo.ch, we remain firmly convinced of the importance of our services in projecting Switzerland’s image internationally and fostering links with Swiss citizens living abroad. We will continue to work to build bridges between Switzerland and the rest of the world, doing our utmost to promote knowledge of Swiss concerns and strengthen democratic values.

Adapted from German by Julia Bassam/ts