Press Council reprimands Basler Zeitung for violation of the duty to consult

The Press Council ruled in the case of a BaZ-article from June 10 of last year with the title "Lukas Engelberger abandoned the elderly". The article stated that most of the coronavirus deaths recorded in the canton at that time had lived in retirement homes, the Swiss Press Council announced on Friday.

According to the Press Council, the article also stated that an institution for dementia patients, which had requested help from the Department of Health led by Cantonal Councillor Engelberger at an early stage, had been particularly badly affected. "But the support came too late."

Correction

Following an intervention by the Department of Health, the Basel Newspaper issued a corrigendum on July 3, 2020. In it, she corrected that the institution for dementia patients had not been helped too late; on the contrary, it had already received a high level of practical and medical support in March 2020.

The Press Council had to clarify whether Engelberger and the Basel Department of Health had been adequately consulted in advance. The Press Council answered in the negative.

According to the Press Council, the accusation that Engelberger had "abandoned the elderly" was a serious accusation that implied a breach of due diligence and therefore illegal or comparable behavior. A general discussion on how to deal with retirement homes during the pandemic, as the journalist from the BaZ The conversation he had with the press officer of the Department of Health during his research was therefore not sufficient.

Instead, Engelberger should have been confronted with the serious accusation intended for publication. The accusation should also have been named precisely. Only if the person concerned knew what they were accused of could they decide whether or not they wanted to comment. In that the Basel Newspaper by failing to do so, it had breached the Code's duty to consult, the Press Council wrote. (SDA)