Seed funding for grea­ter media diversity

The Gott­lieb and Hans Vogt Foun­da­tion laun­ched the fund, which is part of the investigativ.ch network, in 2019 to support in-depth inves­ti­ga­ti­ons in Swiss regio­nal and local jour­na­lism. Jour­na­lists can also access a coach from the inves­ti­ga­tiv network if they wish – an offer that, accor­ding to the chair of the foundation’s board, is also gratefully recei­ved. The record number of grant requests shows that the inves­ti­ga­tion support fund is now well-known and popu­lar, says Panzer: ‘The fact that other funds have now also been crea­ted, such as the Surprise inves­ti­ga­tion fund and Journa­Fonds, shows that media profes­sio­nals are inte­res­ted in inves­t­ing time in thorough rese­arch. At the same time, howe­ver, addi­tio­nal finan­cing is often needed, as media compa­nies don’t pay for all of the work.’ The chair does not see the other inves­ti­ga­tion support funds as compe­ti­tors. On the contrary: ‘The more inves­ti­ga­ti­ons we can support, the more we all contri­bute to media diver­sity and high-quality jour­na­lism.’ Each fund also has its own content crite­ria that it uses to allo­cate funding: ‘We firmly believe that the Gott­lieb and Hans Vogt Foun­da­tion inves­ti­ga­tion support fund is still needed owing to its focus on in-depth rese­arch in local jour­na­lism and given the very tense situa­tion in the media,’ says Panzer, allu­ding to the cost-cutting programme announ­ced by Tame­dia in August. In addi­tion to the inves­ti­ga­tion support fund, which has 25,000 Swiss francs a year at its dispo­sal, the foun­da­tion awards the prize for the best inves­ti­ga­tion every year as part of the Aargau/Solothurn Media Prize. It also funds an annual scho­lar­ship for the Summer Inves­ti­ga­tive Report­ing Course at Colum­bia Univer­sity in New York and supports other rese­arch projects.

For a balan­ced set of media sources

As long ago as 1957, the Solo­thurn-based publisher Gott­lieb Vogt and his son and succes­sor Hans Vogt estab­lished the foun­da­tion, which, accor­ding to its purpose, was to retain Vogt-Schild AG. The foun­ding family’s shares were trans­fer­red to the foun­da­tion, which subse­quently published the Solo­thur­ner Zeitung and Grench­ner Tagblatt news­pa­pers and ensu­red the contin­ued exis­tence of the company after the father and son died within a short time of one another. In 2009, the two regio­nal news­pa­pers were sold to AZ Medien Group. As a result, the foun­da­tion under­went a realignment and has dedi­ca­ted itself to media funding ever since. Its aim is to ‘promote a diverse and regio­nally balan­ced set of media sources in the canton of Solo­thurn that are commit­ted to libe­ral ideas. It also supports the profes­sio­nal educa­tion and trai­ning of jour­na­lists, as well as rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment in the field of print, elec­tro­nic, digi­tal and other media.’ 

Seed funding for media projects

Over the years, the foun­da­tion has slightly adjus­ted its purpose. Today, for exam­ple, impro­ving media liter­acy, espe­ci­ally among young people, is also one of its objec­ti­ves. Howe­ver, its focus remains on local jour­na­lism, parti­cu­larly in the canton of Solo­thurn, and on promo­ting jour­na­lists’ rese­arch skills and poli­ti­cal report­ing in order to streng­then demo­cracy. After all, ‘demo­cracy doesn’t work without an infor­med public,’ says Anita Panzer. ‘Jour­na­lists clarify and contex­tua­lise infor­ma­tion and, through their work, contri­bute to the forma­tion of opini­ons, and scru­ti­nise decis­ion-makers in poli­tics, busi­ness and society.’ Given the limi­ted resour­ces available to edito­rial teams, foun­da­ti­ons could be a cata­lyst for new media projects and busi­ness models that enable good jour­na­lism in the long term, says Panzer. As an exam­ple, she cites the cross-border Media Forward Fund, which was initia­ted by various foun­da­ti­ons in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land and carried out the first round of funding this summer. Although the Swiss media is undoub­tedly in crisis, the chair of the Gott­lieb and Hans Vogt Foun­da­tion is opti­mi­stic about the future: ‘When I look at the grant requests we receive, I have to say, jour­na­lism is full of crea­tive minds who come up with new ideas and deve­lop new projects with a great deal of inno­va­tion. This is where we can make a small contri­bu­tion to sustaina­bi­lity, espe­ci­ally with seed funding.’