Has social media swallowed the Swiss news?

Social media influence on the news in Switzerland is rising - and this is proving to be both a friend and enemy to Swiss media companies. Media researcher Linards Udris says that social media is needed to reach a younger audience, but it brings no financial rewards. Soft news and emotional reporting are becoming more popular. Most Swiss media companies - including swissinfo.ch - are on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This has affected how the news is reported and distributed. For example, because Facebook favours video, many media outlets have been upping their video reporting. And additional time is required of journalists to engage with readers on social media. There are grumblings: earlier this summer, Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of the British Guardian broadsheet, wrote that “social media has swallowed the news, threatening the funding of public-interest reporting and ushering in an era when everyone has their own facts”. For this latter point, she gave ...