Swiss minister wants the press to defend its interests

Beat Jans invites publishers to defend themselves like farmers Keystone-SDA

Commenting on restructuring in the media industry, Justice Minister Beat Jans called on the press to fight back against cost cutting, fake news and AI.

Indispensable in a democracy, the media must defend their interests in the same way as farmers, said the cabinet minister on Thursday.

“Be like the Swiss Farmers’ Union, which is confidently and loudly calling for help because agriculture is important for feeding the country. You have the same importance,” Jans said in a video message at the traditional Epiphany meeting in Zurich, organised by the German-language publishers’ association Schweizer Medien (VSM).

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“Our democracy needs you,” added the head of the Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP), hoping that publishers were aware of this responsibility at a time when they were announcing their cost-cutting measures in editorial offices.

‘Good journalism is expensive’

The minister also warned “that profit targets cannot be the only goal”, while such criticism was levelled in particular at the Tamedia Group last year, following a further restructuring of its news outlets. “Journalism is about more than material gain,” he said.

“Good journalism costs money,” insisted the Social Democrat, appealing to publishers to “defend serious, fact-based journalism, which relies on relevance and not above all on sensationalism and polarisation”.

On the subject of financial support for the press, Jans turned his attention to the issue of neighbouring rights, a standard comparable to copyright that would enable publishers to claim money from platforms such as Google or Facebook for the use of their content.

Such compensation will bring a “breath of fresh air and a bit of time” to the sector, but will not solve all the problems on its own, Jans stressed. He expressed reservations about the possibility of demanding compensation from artificial intelligence (AI) giants such as ChatGPT, which make extensive use of journalistic content to fuel their responses. “We have to be careful not to load the boat too much,” he warned.

Call for a ‘counter-movement’

The AI discussion must, however, be conducted “intensively”, Jans stressed. The Federal Council has commissioned the Federal Department of Telecommunications to carry out a review of the regulatory situation in Switzerland. The government will shortly provide “initial indications” on this subject.

The Minister criticised the decision of Internet giants such as X and Facebook to remove the fact-checking function from their platforms. But he saw this as an opportunity for journalism: “If big tech doesn’t want to sort out what’s true and what’s false, then you, the media, have a role to play,” he said, calling for “a counter-movement” in the face of the flood of “fake news”.

Adapted from French by DeepL/ac

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