Newspaper may describe SRF journalist’s statement as racist
Published: Thursday, Oct 24th 2024, 16:00
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The weekly newspaper "Wochenzeitung" (WOZ) has rightly described an alleged statement by SRF sports presenter Sascha Ruefer about footballer Granit Xhaka as "racist" in the view of the Press Council. The statement "Granit Xhaka is many things, but he is not Swiss" could be considered racist, even if not in the criminal sense, but in the sense of exclusion due to a difference.
The Press Council has rejected a complaint against the WOZ. The latter had accused the newspaper of violating the duty of truth in an article. The alleged sentence from the TV documentary had not actually been used. Moreover, according to the Swiss Criminal Code, it neither disparaged anyone nor referred to a specific ethnic group or race.
In an article published on April 6, 2023, the WOZ described Ruefer's alleged statement as "racist". The controversial sentence is said to have been uttered in the raw version of a recording for the documentary series "The Pressure Game" on Switzerland's World Cup campaign in Qatar 2022. Other media who had seen the original version confirmed that the sentence was uttered in a similar way.
Only selected journalists had access to the documentary footage. They had to agree not to quote the sentence directly in order to be allowed to see the film excerpts in the original. According to the Press Council, WOZ was repeatedly denied access to the original.
The self-regulatory body for media ethics issues criticized the conduct of Swiss Radio and Television SRF. This was of little help in finding the truth. SRF had restricted access to information to selected journalists and told them what they could and could not publish.
The Press Council considered it a "restriction of media freedom" if a company or authority grants selected media exclusive access to information while excluding other media.
SRF denied the accusation of racism made by its presenter in April 2023. At no point had he made racist remarks about Xhaka as a person or his origin. In an initial version of the film, a statement had been taken out of context so that it could have been misunderstood. Sascha Ruefer therefore withdrew the entire statement.
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