Tech­no­logy as a driver of media diversity

Ten media outlets publish their content online on the infra­struc­ture of We.Publish as it stands. Regio­nal media outlets are repre­sen­ted such as Bajour, Tsüri and Hauptstadt.be, along with specia­list media such as the cycling maga­zine Grup­petto and the cultu­ral publi­ca­tion Berner Kultur­agenda (BKa). In addi­tion, We.Publish takes care of networ­king among its users and orga­ni­ses the exch­ange of ideas on all ques­ti­ons that the crea­tion of media entails.

Although We.Publish provi­des the tech­ni­cal infra­struc­ture for online media, it offers much more than that.

Growing ecosys­tem

The We.Publish Foun­da­tion is commit­ted to media diver­sity in Switz­er­land. A small, fast-growing ecosys­tem has now emer­ged on the basis of the tech­ni­cal infrastructure.

‘This really sets us apart from normal tech­ni­cal agen­cies. The parti­ci­pa­ting media outlets bene­fit from the syner­gies.’ For exam­ple, if We.Publish deve­lops a solu­tion for member manage­ment, it is then made available to all media outlets on We.Publish. If there is a need for over­ar­ching solu­ti­ons for ever­yone, the foun­da­tion invests in them, provi­ded it has the means at its dispo­sal. It deve­lops a TWINT connec­tion or a paywall. Indi­vi­dual media outlets can have special requests imple­men­ted by We.Publish at their own expense, but at mode­rate rates. If seve­ral outlets want the same feature, they share the costs amongst themselves.

Direct line to the market

We.Publish also bene­fits from the ecosys­tem. The indi­vi­dual media outlets are closely connec­ted to the market, provide ongo­ing reality checks and act as a perma­nent opti­mi­sa­tion programme. They give input to We.Publish. ‘So far, no one has found the defi­ni­tive solu­tion for sustain­ably finan­cing jour­na­lism in digi­tal media. But the media outlets at We.Publish try things out. If they fail, then they do so quickly and chea­ply, and they share their expe­ri­en­ces with each other. They can move forward so much faster than if they were facing it alone,’ says Graf. ‘We inno­vate toge­ther – that happens through dialo­gue, and tech­no­logy is the way we do it.’ There is a high degree of trans­pa­rency between the compa­nies. It’s not just tech­ni­cal subt­le­ties that are shared. Lear­nings about marke­ting and other expe­ri­en­ces are also shared. ‘The compe­ti­tion is not from other jour­na­li­stic portals, even if new titles are opera­ting in the same market,’ says Nina Graf, who writes for Tsüri along­side her role at We.Publish. Each media outlet deci­des for itself what infor­ma­tion it shares. There are also plans to send a repre­sen­ta­tive of the media outlets to the We.Publish Board of Trus­tees as an obser­ver, so that there can be direct commu­ni­ca­tion there too and all parties can get a feel for each other.

Outda­ted classification

She notes that there is plenty of good digi­tal infor­ma­tion available, but there is still room for impro­ve­ment. And even if media titles stand side by side in the digi­tal world, their origin still sticks. A distinc­tion is still made between a news­pa­per that has an online presence and the website of a radio or tele­vi­sion station. ‘Current media policy diffe­ren­tia­tes between indi­vi­dual chan­nels for histo­ri­cal reasons, which should be recon­side­red in light of the incre­asing conver­gence of media,’ she says. Because from a demo­cra­tic point of view this is irrele­vant. ‘Whether digi­tal or not, it is funda­men­tally desi­ra­ble that jour­na­lism can be present where people consume information.’

A new path

He became the initia­tor through his support­ers. As an inves­ti­ga­tive repor­ter, Gras­seg­ger rese­ar­ched the impact of the inter­net and social media on society. In 2016, he unco­vered Cambridge Analytica’s elec­tion influen­cing acti­vi­ties on social media. What he saw in his rese­arch worried him – the incre­asing pola­ri­sa­tion and disin­te­gra­tion of social cohe­sion through disin­for­ma­tion. In an essay in 2019, he propo­sed using the new tech­no­lo­gies to prevent disin­for­ma­tion. The vision? To make relia­ble infor­ma­tion more acces­si­ble than disin­for­ma­tion. An exch­ange with the Merca­tor Foun­da­tion Switz­er­land and the Migros Pioneer Fund was estab­lished at the end of 2020. During the pande­mic, there was a growing aware­ness that disin­for­ma­tion also works in Switz­er­land. This enab­led him to deve­lop a concept in 2021: Gras­seg­ger attrac­ted the inte­rest of the city of Zug in 2022 with the idea of a social network for news. Gras­seg­ger descri­bes the city’s chall­enge: ‘The expats and the locals hardly talk to each other. They wanted to encou­rage people to live toge­ther.’ Merca­tor Schweiz and the Migros Pioneer Fund deci­ded to support a project toge­ther and pled­ged 1.5 million Swiss francs. Gras­seg­ger left his posi­tion at the maga­zine and star­ted soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment in mid-2023 with a team that quickly grew to five people. Pola­ris works with micro-media and commu­ni­ties in Zug, Geneva, Vaud and St. Gallen.

Urban-rural divide

‘The rural popu­la­tion is grossly negle­c­ted by the media,’ says Gras­seg­ger, ‘and city dwel­lers don’t even notice that. The cities are actually over­sup­plied.’ Almost a third of all 15,000 muni­ci­pa­li­ties in the DACH region have insuf­fi­ci­ent jour­na­li­stic coverage. These news gaps are gaping wounds of the infor­ma­tion society: ‘If there are gaps in the news, that’s where radi­cals set up shop, conspi­racy theo­ries circu­late, and social cohe­sion breaks down because the local popu­la­tion knows less and less about each other. This is the miss­ing link to the unre­sol­ved ques­tion of why the poli­ti­cal system has become so incal­culable in recent years.’ Incre­asingly large sections of the popu­la­tion are excluded in terms of infor­ma­tion. It is para­do­xi­cal. Gras­seg­ger says: ‘We have the best infor­ma­tion tech­no­logy of all time – and we know less and less about what’s actually going on around us. Every time Trump snee­zes, we hear about it – but we have no idea what our local mayor is doing.’ For econo­mic reasons, the media have incre­asingly been igno­ring the top jour­na­li­stic impe­ra­tive that the closer an event is, the more rele­vant it is. To this end, Project Pola­ris desi­gned its own form of hyper­lo­cal jour­na­lism – neigh­bour­hood jour­na­lism. ‘We wanted to set up a portal for news from the neigh­bour­hood, toge­ther with the neigh­bours them­sel­ves,’ says Gras­seg­ger. ‘Pola­ris has reim­agi­ned jour­na­lism – from the point of view of the people. What local news do I need? When? And in what form?’

A ques­tion of credibility

Regard­less of the chan­nel and the way it works, the ques­tion of credi­bi­lity remains central to jour­na­li­stic report­ing. ‘The credi­bi­lity of jour­na­lism is not actually a tech­no­lo­gi­cal ques­tion – it’s rela­ted to many diffe­rent factors,’ says Anna Jobin. ‘Media content compe­tes with many other infor­ma­tion chan­nels for audi­ence atten­tion. In this envi­ron­ment, it’s not just about credi­bi­lity, but also about rele­vance and the ability to assert ones­elf in a frag­men­ted media land­scape.’ Digi­ta­li­sa­tion has not only chan­ged the busi­ness model of jour­na­lism. With the new possi­bi­li­ties and the multi­tude of infor­ma­tion compe­ting via diffe­rent chan­nels, jour­na­li­stic work itself has to evolve. The appli­ca­ti­ons of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) brought about a radi­cal change. For jour­na­lism, these new possi­bi­li­ties mean both gradual tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment and disrup­tive change. Jobin says: ‘The short-term effects of AI tend to be overe­sti­ma­ted, as AI is not the silver bullet that it is some­ti­mes hyped up to be.’ She also points out that the term ‘AI’ is used to cover a multi­tude of diffe­rent appli­ca­ti­ons. On the other hand, neither the tasks nor the aims of jour­na­lism will be chan­ged by new tech­no­lo­gi­cal methods in the short term. At the same time, she notes that AI tools are being used by more and more people and orga­ni­sa­ti­ons at many levels of infor­ma­tion proces­sing and disse­mi­na­tion. The entire infor­ma­tion ecosys­tem, which has alre­ady expe­ri­en­ced a major para­digm shift with the advent of the inter­net and digi­ta­li­sa­tion, is now beco­ming even more dyna­mic. Jobin ther­e­fore sees important longer-term effects, which may be more profound. ‘These also influence the role of jour­na­lism in society and should not be unde­re­sti­ma­ted.’ Some areas that she considers far-reaching are the impact of gene­ra­tive AI, for exam­ple, or when AI is used in auto­ma­ted recom­men­da­tion and perso­na­li­sa­tion systems. Here, she is less focu­sed on the indi­vi­dual consump­tion of infor­ma­tion. What she sees as more signi­fi­cant is the impact that the use of such systems has on the percep­tion and reach of infor­ma­tion. Jobin says: ‘Because effects of this kind are not neces­s­a­rily felt on an indi­vi­dual level, but prima­rily at the aggre­gate level, i.e. syste­mi­cally, we need a holi­stic approach.’

Buil­ding trust

The Pola­ris team deve­lo­ped, tested and discarded concepts, and star­ted working with AI. Using digi­tal methods, we can measure what people use and what inte­rests them. The product has been radi­cally puri­fied: a weekly news­let­ter deli­vered straight to your pocket, via email or Whats­App. Each one conta­ins around ten ultra-local reports, some from submis­si­ons and letters to the editor. There is also a local agenda. The content comes from the gene­ral public – supported by AI. AI helps contri­bu­tors write reports and comply with the core rules of jour­na­lism through a chat­bot and coll­ects updates from the websites of local asso­cia­ti­ons, autho­ri­ties and busi­nesses. All content is checked by a local person in the capa­city of ‘commu­nity editor’. Hannes Gras­seg­ger says: ‘The aim of Pola­ris is to streng­then the connec­tion with one’s own envi­ron­ment and neigh­bour­hood, and to improve users’ media skills by enab­ling them to create their own news content of jour­na­li­stic quality. The idea is to build social trust as well as trust in the content.’ The busi­ness model is also in place: Pola­ris opera­tes the media outlets like a publi­shing house. Each title is finan­ced locally through member­ships and adver­ti­se­ments from local busi­nesses, which also bene­fit from the new option of ultra-local digi­tal adver­ti­sing. ‘We disco­vered this gap in the market through local discus­sions. At first, we couldn’t believe it. We thought Face­book and simi­lar plat­forms had solved that problem a long time ago.’ It doesn’t need a lot of income. Thanks to the tech­no­logy, Pola­ris was able to reduce the workload invol­ved in opera­ting a local media outlet to ten percent of a stan­dard full-time job. Gras­seg­ger prides itself on the simpli­city of the product: ‘Our role model is the Bauhaus,’ he says. ‘We want to finally give local people a jour­na­li­stic home again. And to achieve this, we ask oursel­ves at every level: What is the essence?’ This is the only way to achieve the goal of sustain­ably laun­ching and opera­ting large numbers of new local media outlets. Pola­ris News alre­ady opera­tes two media outlets in three languages. Further test regi­ons are to be acti­va­ted in the coming weeks. Gras­seg­ger has alre­ady coll­ec­ted two million Swiss francs in start-up funding. That makes Pola­ris one of the major funding projects in jour­na­lism. Gras­seg­ger is now looking for more money for the next step of scaling up to 150 regi­ons. He belie­ves he is on course to get there: ‘Over­all, we are below the five million Swiss francs I origi­nally fore­cast in 2020. We have a busi­ness model that doesn’t require funding or subsi­dies in the long term. We offer a solu­tion to a huge problem – for a sum that others would buy an apart­ment for.’werden. Zwei Millio­nen Fran­ken Anschub­för­de­rung hatte Gras­seg­ger gesam­melt. Pola­ris ist damit eines der gros­sen Förder­pro­jekte im Jour­na­lis­mus. Für den nächs­ten Schritt der Skalie­rung auf 150 Regio­nen sucht er nun weite­res Geld. Er sieht sich auf Kurs: «Wir liegen insge­samt unter den von mir 2020 ursprüng­lich veran­schlag­ten fünf Millio­nen Fran­ken. Wir haben ein Geschäfts­mo­dell, das lang­fris­tig ohne Förde­rung oder Subven­tio­nen auskommt.
Wir bieten eine Lösung für ein Riesen­pro­blem – für eine Summe, für die sich andere eine Wohnung kaufen.»

Quality label

How a media title is finan­ced is rele­vant to its jour­na­li­stic work. To join We.Publish, the edito­rial team must work accor­ding to the jour­na­li­stic rights and obli­ga­ti­ons set out by the Press Coun­cil. ‘This includes, for exam­ple, the requi­re­ment that jour­na­lists know how their media outlet is finan­ced,’ says Graf. The parti­ci­pa­ting media outlets are comple­tely inde­pen­dent – both econo­mic­ally and edito­ri­ally. Poli­ti­cal orien­ta­tion is unim­portant. The ques­tion arises as to whether We.Publish will ever func­tion as a quality label for inde­pen­dent jour­na­li­stic report­ing. The prere­qui­si­tes for such a label are actually in place. With AI incre­asingly gaining ground in jour­na­lism, guaran­teed and conveyed credi­bi­lity, dili­gence and authen­ti­city are beco­ming crucial. Deal­ing with AI will conti­nue to chall­enge jour­na­lism. The flood of infor­ma­tion conti­nues to increase. Howe­ver, Voigt also sees oppor­tu­ni­ties in this. Espe­ci­ally at the local level. ‘With every piece of infor­ma­tion, the ques­tion of who checked it arises at some point,’ says Voigt. ‘I want to know who the author is and I have to be able to deve­lop trust.’ That is why he also belie­ves that authors are gaining in importance today. ‘Nowa­days, no one would write a post signed with just their initi­als. The full name repres­ents someone I might even be able to meet,’ says Voigt. In his view, the credi­bi­lity debate is very much fuel­led by AI, and – after a disrup­tive phase – he belie­ves it will work for careful jour­na­lism, not against it.

One voice amongst many

Tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment will conti­nue to chall­enge the indus­try. The media will have to work to main­tain their rele­vance and credi­bi­lity, whether they operate in micro-jour­na­lism or natio­nally. Anna Jobin deems indus­try stan­dards and solu­ti­ons to be important for credi­bi­lity – as well as red lines that the public needs to be aware of. ‘Many of the trends we’ve become aware of since digi­ta­li­sa­tion will conti­nue to inten­sify. For exam­ple, the influence of large tech­no­logy provi­ders and plat­forms is likely to increase, without them having to take into account the socie­tal goals of jour­na­lism,’ says Jobin. ‘In addi­tion, new AI tools are making it easier for ever­yone to produce and disse­mi­nate content. Jour­na­lism is incre­asingly one voice amongst many, which pres­ents it with the chall­enge of once again proving and reaf­fir­ming its importance and added value in this alte­red infor­ma­tion environment.’