“Quality, rigor, reliability, neutrality” are adjectives often used to describe the Swiss Confederation, its products and people. By a fortuitous coincidence, journalism and media share the same fundamental moral codes, which are increasingly found across the entire value chain.
In a medium or long-term perspective, Switzerland may rely on these advantages to expand its information market, which would be in keeping with how our financial marketplace has evolved in the 19th and 20th centuries. Though they continue to be analyzed through a territorial and sometimes linguistic angle, the playing fields of today and tomorrow’s media extend to the entire planet, like any other “globalized commodity.”
The quality and relevance of journalistic information are ensured by a common moral code, which is becoming more important across all sectors of society and is now spreading ethical rules across the value chain, from storage to broadcasting, and to all forms of information, be they statistical data or fictional content.
As its expansion continues, the new “regulated” information market will entail huge needs, in which the main standards of how relevant an offer is will be physical (strategic positioning, constant power supply), as well as safety-related (access only to authorized parties while respecting anonymity), or neutral (confidentiality, guaranteed delivery of services, regardless of risks)… All areas in which Switzerland’s characteristics, both physical (bunkers, hydroelectricity) and political (neutrality, stability), will make a big difference. Thanks to its historical assets, its qualified personnel, its multilingual and multicultural population, and its high-speed infrastructures, Switzerland may become the center of a future informational Europe.
In these troubled times of crisis, and in the context of a sensational third industrial revolution, our traditional tertiary sectors are finding it difficult to summon a satisfactory economic and moral response. Must we really base our future prosperity on confiscating tax revenue from other nations, exporting weapons or speculating on the raw materials which give the planet sustenance? Do these 20th century growth enablers reinforce our position as a leading nation of multilateralism, which welcomes international organizations on neutral ground or exports intellectual progress by way of patents, machines and other know-how? While the answers may seem morally obvious, economic fears keep us from furthering the reflection, from aligning the presence of the UN or the WHO on our territory with our income, connecting the enduring problems which are tackled by these organizations. Switzerland, both a geographical nation and a political idea, has the means of relating its sustained wealth with the assurance that it does not impoverish anyone. This not only serves the world, but is also a guarantee of its own future. Though it is not the last century of history, the 21st century will play out in a more transparent, more shared perspective, in keeping with the lateral evolution of distributed economy. In doing so, all non-destructive economic growth strategies must be examined, working on a first come, first served basis.
In possible futures, a Swiss information market which validates the ethics of data, securely preserving it for millennia in physical, legal and information bunkers, will give value to and broaden historical Swiss expertise while integrating it into an ethical framework. This, however customary it may be for journalists, is a new concept for the export industry.