Publisher President Masüger in favor of new media subsidies

The new president of the publishers, Andrea Masüger, has spoken out in favor of a performance protection law and a new version of media subsidies. He considers the accusation that the media have slept through digitization to be a "petty claim. The first annual goal of the Association of Swiss Media (VSM) is to help the ancillary copyright achieve a breakthrough. Andrea Masüger said this in his first presidential speech at the association's Epiphany meeting in Zurich on Wednesday.

Such a right would oblige international corporations to pay a levy to Swiss media for the dissemination of their journalistic content. The Federal Council intends to submit a proposal for this in the near future for consultation. As a second goal for the year, Masüger mentioned a "slimmed-down new version of media subsidies. This was after the voters had rejected the media law. He has in mind a new version that would also enable small and medium-sized companies to make the digital transition. These two goals would complement each other, he said. One bill would not replace the other.

Digital transformation well mastered

Masüger is convinced that the Swiss media have mastered the digital transformation well. The claim that they have slept through digitization is "an old petty argument." Rather, he says, the international tech giants are the "spoilsports": "They profit from the success of Swiss journalistic work at zero cost."

In his speech, Masüger also addressed the phenomenon of the news deprived. Several recent studies on this topic have one thing in common: "They declare us all to be bores. The media are backward and still produce newspapers. But in doing so, they are engaging in a "sublimated form of insulting the public.

Because 70 percent of those who regularly go to the polls read newspapers. This was found out by Fög, the Research Center Public and Society at the University of Zurich. "The democratic process in Switzerland is largely driven by people who use these outdated media," Masüger said. The news-deprived, on the other hand, thought that the voting envelope in the mailbox was an advertisement.

Andrea Masüger was elected as the new president of the association last September. He has been delegate of the board of directors of the Grisons-based Somedia since 2018. Previously, he was CEO of the media house for eight years and Editor-in-Chief of Grisons Newspaper / Südostschweiz. (sda)