Blog

An amazing debate on Swiss TV

From InfoCheckers

In 2017, a moderated debate on Swiss TV on the reliability of the official media received more complaints than all other broadcasts together that year, because the moderator tried to discredit one of the participants. Interesting (both the topic and the incident)!

The full, uncut broadcast on “Trump's war against the media” can be found here (in Swiss German but you can switch on German sub titles): https://www.srf.ch/play/suche?query=arena%20trump

I found a summary video of the pertinent parts (again with German subtitles), and here's a copy of that video with English subtitles:
(https://vimeo.com/322639104 , you may have to click on the "cc" button for those subtitles)

After 5 min in the summary version, one can see how the debate mediator launched a well prepared personal attack on one of the invited panel members - in presence of the president of the complaints commission for radio and TV! And when the victim complained about the misleading presentation of his words (words in a private email!), the reply was:

“You make a conspiracy theory LIVE in the arena, Mr. Ganser”.

Amazingly, afterwards the organisers tried to whitewash their actions by arguing that they were “right” (see their defence in ref. [2]). Even if that were so, no “conspiracy theorist” needs to invent a “theory” in this case. However I found* that they were “wrong”.

Still, according to the organisers (translated, with emphasis mine):

“Until proof to the contrary - which is by no means provided to this day - the 'Arena' editorship can and must, however, accept the official investigation report as a truthful representation of the actual events, anything else would be arbitrary. […] 'Arena' was committed to the above-mentioned truthful account of the events of September 11, 2001, so the moderation was forced to resist.”

Really? Happily, Western radio and TV channels do not generally abide to such ideas. A couple of days ago I saw on French TV a documentary on MH370 that put strong doubts on the official report about that disaster.

While the Swiss TV's ombudsman deemed that the nearly 500 complaints by more than 500 people were partly justified, the 6 complaints that made it to the complaint commission were rejected in a 4 against 4 ruling.

* In his email Dr. Ganser thanked for the good part on "9/11", but he disliked the mixing of serious questions about "9/11" with conspiracy theories. The broadcast even had as title "The anatomy of conspiracy theories". On Twitter he wrote what he thought of that - different tone and different words, but fully consistent.
1. https://www.20min.ch/entertainment/tv/story/-Arena--Moderator-hat-Ganser-unfair-behandelt-28231564
2. https://www.srgd.ch/de/aktuelles/news/2017/04/11/arena-uber-unehrliche-medien-beanstandet/
3. https://www.ubi.admin.ch/inhalte/entscheide/b_753_756_757_758__759_760.pdf

Comments are welcome!

[this post was first written in March 2019]

PS I also added a French translation of this post


avatar

Anonymous user #1

56 months ago
Score 0++
Thanks
avatar

Admin

55 months ago
Score 0++
On hindsight, I consider the last citation as more important and striking than the video itself, because it establishes as fact what one could only suspect from seeing the video. Effectively, the Pravda of Switzerland. Or perhaps more fittingly, the Voice of America inside Switzerland. Moreover the implied claims can hardly be true: I dare to suspect that they arbitrarily believe official reports from some governments but not from others.
avatar

Admin

55 months ago
Score 0++
And a disclaimer: In no way does the portrayal of this video imply an opinion about the debated topics.
Add your comment
InfoCheckers welcomes all comments. If you do not want to be anonymous, register or log in. It is free.