Found an error?
Report nowAfter the fire in Crans-Montana on New Year's Eve, SRF was caught in the crossfire of criticism: it had reported too late on the major event. But a look at the chronology shows that there can be no question of silence.
On March 8, Switzerland will vote on a popular initiative to cut the funding of the public media company behind SRF and Co. Unsurprisingly, the reporting of the SRF editorial team has since come under increasing scrutiny from critical observers.
The blog "Infosperber" by former "Kassensturz" presenter Urs P. Gasche spoke of "morning silence", while the banking blog "Inside Paradeplatz" ran the pointed headline: "SRF fails at Crans-Montana" - and claimed, among other things, that SRF journalists only got to work at 9.12 am. Other titles also criticized SRF's work on the day of the disaster - from the morning to the evening program.
In addition, "Inside Paradeplatz" claimed that the competition had been significantly faster: "20 Minuten" had already reported at 1.48 a.m. - a few minutes after the fire broke out - in a live ticker. This claim later proved to be false. "20 Minuten" had manipulated the timestamp of the ticker entry. The "Aargauer Zeitung", which published the falsified time, spoke of a "serious journalistic error".
According to a "20 Minuten" spokesperson, the time of the ticker entry was backdated to the "approximate time of the event instead of the time of publication" and has since been corrected.
But how did SRF really report on that day?
blue News requested the relevant recordings from the archive. They show: Radio SRF first reported on the fire disaster at 7 a.m., relying on information from its French-speaking Swiss counterpart RTS. The report stated:
"In Crans-Montana in the canton of Valais, a large fire broke out during a New Year's celebration. There have been several deaths and injuries, police told RTS radio and television in western Switzerland. The exact number of dead and injured is unclear. The fire broke out in a bar during the night after one or more explosions. The background is also still unclear. The rescue services are deployed in Crans-Montana with a large contingent, helicopters and several ambulances are on site."
According to the SRF media office, the news is produced and broadcast around the clock by Radio SRF. The same team is also responsible for online news and teletext.
This was not always the case: during the major fire in Schweizerhalle in 1986, there was no night service at Radio DRS. The public first heard about the disaster via the private radio station Basilisk.
SRF drew conclusions from that night: Today there is a night service, supported by journalists on standby. The first article appeared on the SRF website at 7.06 am. At 7.11 a.m., SRF sent out the first push notification via the news app. From 9.50 a.m., SRF broadcast the media conference of the Valais police online - in part also on television.
For comparison: Blick was the first online portal in German-speaking Switzerland to report on the fire disaster at 6.18 a.m. blue News published its first report at around 7.14 a.m..
As the morning progressed, it became increasingly clear that a serious disaster had occurred in Crans-Montana. SRF switched its radio news program to half-hourly updates and at 12.40 p.m. broadcast a lengthy interview with the Rega flight coordinator. At midday, the first special TV program "SRF News Spezial" was broadcast on SRF 1. In the evening, SRF broadcast the press conference with Federal President Guy Parmelin and extended the "Tagesschau" program.
In other words: SRF did report on the morning after the fire disaster. Nevertheless, the criticism remained - also because the SRF media office reacted rather defensively to accusations.
For example, when former Kassensturz presenter Urs P. Gasche asked "Infosperber" why SRF had not broadcast a word about the fire on television on the morning of January 1, there was no clear denial. SRF replied:
"We are guided by people's media usage behavior and deploy our resources accordingly. We already provided information in the morning in the news ticker of the SRF News app and online, where the media conference was also broadcast [in French]. On the radio, SRF changed the news from every hour to every half hour. We reached the population on their preferred channels."
Even after "Inside Paradeplatz" published false allegations - without first obtaining a statement from SRF - the reaction remained reserved. Under media law, SRF would have had comparatively simple options to demand a counterstatement if no statement had been requested beforehand.
The media spokesperson did not want to comment to blue News on why SRF refrained from doing so - especially during the referendum campaign, when any legitimate criticism of SRF can serve as an argument in favor of the initiative. She merely explained: "In principle, we examine each situation individually and decide on possible interventions. We do not comment on specific decisions."
What SRF also does not explain in its favor, but the editorial team members know: Internally, the principle "Be first. But first be right". According to the journalistic guidelines, this means that SRF does not want to be quick at all costs, but checks the information particularly carefully in breaking news situations. "When it comes to breaking news and rapidly developing and changing news situations, we place particularly high demands on source transparency."
According to the media office, the question of how the SRF reports strike the "right tone" was added to the reporting on Crans-Montana. Just how difficult this was was demonstrated by the radio report on SRF's French-speaking Swiss counterpart, Radio RTS, where the radio presenter placed the news about the fire disaster immediately after his cheerful good-morning-in-the-New-Year wish.
Note: A quote from the "20 Minuten" spokesperson was added after the article was published.
