Leuthard does not want to intervene in SDA job cuts
Media Minister Doris Leuthard does not want to intervene directly with the news agency SDA, which has announced that it will cut up to 40 jobs. She argues that the federal government is not a shareholder in the private agency.
Leuthard said this on Thursday evening on the sidelines of the official opening of the Planzer Railway Center in Penthalaz VD in response to a question from an SDA reporter on site. However, Leuthard stressed the importance of the agency and regrets if its performance declines. The SDA, she said, is enormously important, especially for smaller media companies. However, she said, it was not her role to interfere in the company's internal affairs.
Asked whether she would meet with the SDA management if necessary, Leuthard replied that she could not comment on internal issues. These were the responsibility of the company, she said, and the federal government was not one of SDA's shareholders. There are many companies in Switzerland with problems, she said.
Customers are shareholders
However, Leuthard recalled that the federal government plans to support Switzerland's only news agency with two million francs per year in the future. This should secure its "important contribution to the quality of local-regional reporting" in the longer term, her department wrote in October.
The editorial staff of SDA sent an open letter on Wednesday to the Federal Council, the presidiums of the federal councils, the Federal Chancellery and the cantonal governments. In it, they are asked to support the concerns of the editorial team - namely the renunciation of a reduction on the scale announced - or to submit their own demands to the management and the board of directors.
SDA is a stock corporation. Most of the shareholders are media companies, i.e. the agency's customers. (SDA)
