When a correspondent is not a correspondent

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The Swiss Press Council recently did not respond to a complaint about the North American coverage of a well-known Swiss daily newspaper. It justified this as follows: "Correspondent reports have the characteristic of expressing the personally colored assessment of these journalists. And even should express it. That is their USP [unique selling proposition]. This is what listeners, readers and viewers expect and value." Although the complaint also criticized other points, the Press Council limited its justification to denying a violation of the requirement to separate information and commentary (section 2.3 of the guidelines of the journalists' code of conduct). However, the Press Council's justification was not only incomplete (which is irrelevant here) - but also contradictory.

On June 29, 2013, the NZZ reported in a press usa rcs data release entitled "New correspondent at the Federal Court": "Katharina Fontana will succeed Markus Felber as correspondent at the Federal Court..."

The fact that Katharina Fontana was officially called Federal Court correspondent did not prevent the Press Council from reprimanding her in July 2016 for not "clearly distinguishing between commentary and informative passages" (decision 22/2016). Apparently, the Press Council's free pass regarding section 2.3 does not apply to all types of correspondents. Or to put it another way: everyone is equal before the Press Council - but some are more equal. It certainly did not help Katharina Fontana at the time that she took on former Federal Court President Giusep Nay, who sat on the initiative committee of the Corporate Responsibility Initiative.

The powerful managing director of the Press Council, Ursina Wey, was active in development cooperation before her work - and there was still a little something for a like-minded person. The fact that the Press Council considered the result more important than a clear presentation is shown by the following passage from its "reasoning": "The text does, however, contain passages that clearly comment.
It is difficult for the audience to distinguish between information and evaluation." "Clearly commenting" and "difficult to distinguish" - given the obvious clarity, the distinction should not actually be so difficult according to Adam Riese.