cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/16337814
Switzerland has consistently had a center-right majority in govt since 20 years, so yeah this must be BS.
Though to be fair half of our center right majority would be equivalent to or even to the left of most democrats. Just so people in the US know how fucked their overton window is.
They aren’t controlled by the government though are they? Seems like they are funded by taxes but are an independent org.
And they publish how they come to their conclusions: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/swi-swissinfo-ch/
The problem is that it doesn’t matter if they publish how they came to their conclusions if how they come to their conclusions is nonsense. Your link is a perfect example. In the bias section there is a paragraph consisting mostly of cruft followed by two sentences attempting to justify a left rating:
Editorially, opinion pieces tend to slightly favor the left, such as this Adopt green hydrogen strategy now, Swiss cantons tell Bern. In general, SWI is fact-based and hold slight left-leaning editorial biases.
One opinion piece on green hydrogen is apparently enough justification for MBFC. I actually can’t even tell if it’s an opinion piece because it doesn’t seem to have the author’s opinion in it anywhere, it’s quoting reporting from elsewhere and a letter.
Doesn’t that seem pretty paper thin? I don’t think they even bother referencing any of the categories from their own methodology in this one.
I feel like I’m the only one that has actually read any of their bias justifications because after you read one I don’t see how can take them seriously at all. Maybe I’m missing something though, or I’m just going mad because lots of folks keep referring to MBFC as a serious organisation.
The issue is that “left / right / center” are entirely subjective. You’re always going to have somebody bitching about “how can they say that’s left-leaning!” no matter what standard you set. What’s important is to make the standard you’re following transparent and to justify how you came to a result. Then people can adjust for what their personal offset may be.
Or mostly likely people will just continue to bitch and call it an arbitrary ranking.
I think it’s considered center left based on US politics. Our Overton window has shifted pretty far. The Swiss have universal healthcare and strict gun control. That can’t be right by US standards.
We may have “universal healthcare” in that everyone every legal resident following the law, the law saying you must purchase health insurance, is technically insured.
But we don’t have public insurance, it’s run by private companies at exorbitant prices with crazy premiums. And since we have such a large insurance /phara industry here, they are in the pockets of the government. Hell, the big insurance and big pharma companies even own shares in our national bank!
As much as it sounds like you don’t like what you have, it’s still better than the US.
It’s true that it’s based on US standards, but it’s also worth pointing out that the rating itself is completely arbitrary.
