SWI swissinfo.ch reaffirms its commitment to reader trust and quality

As part of its public service mandate, SWI swissinfo.ch provides independent and in-depth reporting on Swiss politics, business, science, culture and society for an international audience with an interest in Switzerland. SWI swissinfo.ch / Severin Nowacki

SWI swissinfo.ch, the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), has secured the prestigious Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI) certification for the second time, marking a milestone in its trust and transparency measures.

The JTI initiative, introduced by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in 2018, is a way for media organisations to highlight to readers their dedication to trustworthiness, transparency, ethics, and the highest standards of quality.

Together with its JTI re-certification, SWI swissinfo.ch has also received a remarkable quality score of 7.8 points in the annual media quality study conducted by the Research Center for Public Sphere and Society at the University of Zurich, known within Switzerland as “fög”.

“Transparency is essential when it comes to quality and trust in journalism, because we can’t expect readers to trust us if we don’t explain what we do and how it is done,” explains Veronica DeVore, Head of Audience at SWI swissinfo.ch. “Today, online media around the world compete with a growing number of actors spreading fake news and propaganda as audiences shift away from traditional print news towards online news. This makes online news consumers a target for those aiming to monetise their attention or manipulate their attitude towards specific topics, people or institutions.”

A way to quickly identify trusted sources

During the coronavirus pandemic, fake news proliferated exponentially. This posed a formidable challenge for both news consumers and global search engines in differentiating reliable sources from spurious ones. For this reason, SWI swissinfo.ch initially sought to acquire the JTI label and pursued re-certification in 2023.

To learn about and strengthen measures around editorial trustworthiness, SWI swissinfo.ch has also been working with the US-based nonprofit Trusting News.

“Since August 2022, we have been working with Trusting News to improve our transparency and develop techniques to earn and keep our readers’ trust,” says DeVore. “These range from language on individual articles, such as boxes explaining why we chose to cover something, to an overhaul of our “About Us” page, now featuring videos explaining how we work when it comes to a range of topics.”

SWI swissinfo.ch continues to work with Trusting News in a coaching-based relationship; current topics include audience research and transparency measures around the use of artificial intelligence.

High marks in quality ranking

SWI swissinfo.ch’s work to improve quality and transparency appears to have paid off: the Swiss Media Quality Yearbook published by the University of Zurich gave the 10-language public media platform a score of 7.8 out of 10 (+0.1 points compared to 2022) in terms of quality within the online news category. SWI swissinfo.ch’s score of 7.8 is the highest among all Swiss online media.

“Our teams are proud of this result because evaluations of our quality by independent third parties strengthen the credibility of these results and makes ours comparable with both national and international online media. It’s a key factor for building and strengthening trust of our readers and community,” says Reto Gysi von Wartburg, responsible for quality at SWI swissinfo.ch.
 

More information

• JTIExternal link / Certificate JTI SWIExternal link
• Trusting NewsExternal link
• Yearbook Quality of the MediaExternal link