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Journalist's Journal

By Hugo Bütler Posted Jul 1 2005

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Since it was founded in 1780 in Switzerland, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung has been a newspaper that has contributed to the formation of opinion in a democratic society and as such takes positions on political issues independently and on its own responsibility, based on its own competence.

The purpose of our enterprise is to provide “high-quality information on politics, the economy and culture at the regional, national and international levels, and to give voice to clear liberal views on the great issues and challenges of our time.” That journalistic mission statement neatly describes the challenge that confronts me every day. In the last 20 years since I was chosen as editor-in-chief, however, the way in which that challenge has been met has changed considerably.

In 1985 the editor-in-chief was also the chairman of the managing board, and his activities, to ensure the primacy of journalism, were essentially limited to publishing the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. My job at the time was to publish the NZZ on a liberal basis “as a Swiss daily newspaper of high quality and good readability, as a prominent journal of opinion of a general Swiss character strongly anchored in the Zurich region and with international influence,” as our charter put it.

Historian as Manager

In principle, that is still my job today. But now the NZZ company has grown to become a media group which owns several local and regional newspapers (or holds shares in regional newspaper companies) as well as local radio stations; it publishes the monthly magazine NZZ Folio as a supplement to the NZZ; and it is active on television with political debates and serious documentaries (NZZ Format) and on the Internet with online offerings.

NZZ has thus become a component part of a bigger NZZ Group, of which I am also chairman of the board of directors. This arrangement gives the editor-in-chief managerial responsibility at the highest level, and I intend to ensure that its journalistic purposes and qualities are maintained in the company’s business and commercial decisions. Deep down inside, I am still a journalist: I think it is important to write regularly for the NZZ, and I chair the daily meetings and conferences of the editorial staff. I read important opinion-forming articles, such as editorials and commentaries, before they are published, and I discuss them with the authors, the department chiefs and editors. I take an intense interest in sensitive topics in the daily flow of information to ensure their up-to-date treatment and assessment in the NZZ.

Manager as Journalist

So, on the one hand I try to steer the NZZ group around rocks and shallows in the new environment, one more hostile for the media, characterized by new technologies, concentration of the press and the decline of advertising. On the other hand, I remain before the public as a journalist. I do so in the NZZ, with lectures, in a regular television broadcast called NZZ Standpunkte and as a participant in panel discussions. In all these activities, I am committed to spreading liberal views and attitudes. For me, that commitment to the fundamental ideas of Swiss liberalism is more than just a mandate contained in the editorial statutes, and also more than just a mere tradition of our newspaper. The Swiss type of liberalism is consistent with my deepest convictions. For that reason, it would go against the mission of the editorial staff and against my personal ambition to publish the NZZ merely as a “neutral” information sheet, which is immune to attacks from all sides, and intangible for being undefined, with no intellectual commitment and as a forum for any and all views.

What is important for the NZZ, beyond publishing solid, relevant information, is well-founded opinion, better arguments, and a liberal orientation. This should put the reader in a position to be heard and to have a say as a free citizen in a free community, as an employer or employee, as a producer or consumer in a free society and a free economy.

Having originated in the spirit of the 18th century European enlightenment, NZZ has always taken clear and deliberate stands on public issues. It is addressed to the politically mature citizen who in the direct democracy of Switzerland enjoys the right of decision, “the last word,” on all political issues. The NZZ’s commitment to forming political opinion goes back a long way, at least as far back as Paul Usteri, the editor-in-chief from 1821 to 1831, who successfully fought for journalistic freedom against the authoritarian regime of censorship. That tradition was also, for example, upheld by Willy Bretscher, the editor-in-chief from 1933 to 1967, who defended freedom of the press at a time when the Nazi regime in Germany threatened to use the free expression of opinion by Swiss journalists as a pretext for a military attack on Switzerland.

Another part of our political commitment is the NZZ’s membership in the International Press Institute since it was founded in 1950 and its active role in the IPI’s efforts to promote freedom of the press and on behalf of threatened or imprisoned journalists.

Journalist as Opinion-Maker

The NZZ, as intended by its founders, has never been and is not today a spokesman for any party. For the editor-in-chief, it is an advantage that the fundamental stance of his newspaper, its spiritual grounding in the liberal attitudes of Swiss liberalism, is openly declared. Our readers know in advance that it is on the basis of that political philosophy that the NZZ assesses events and people. Its clear liberal stance enables it to fit events from Zurich to Beijing or Washington into an intellectual-political framework and to evaluate them.

The fine art of journalism practiced in the spirit of liberalism, as I understand it, consists of reporting on the situation so comprehensively and objectively, but at the same time accurately and concisely, that even those readers who do not share the NZZ’s political orientation can receive from it a good basis for judging events. For me, that means that we also publish the good arguments of political opponents and discuss things seriously with them. Liberalism for me means the opposite of ideological fossilization, it means the primacy of and constant search for better arguments.

I see the NZZ’s provision of information as well as its contribution to forming opinion as being in the service of freedom and reason for the public interest. Thus I place my work as editor-in-chief and corporate manager in the broader context above and beyond the firm: that is, in the service of a liberal and democratic polity which, while not perfect, nevertheless has found a concrete form in the Swiss state, which can stand comparison with any democracy in the world.