GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – I just deleted the Chicago Sun-Times “Zurich update” news feed from my Twitter account after seeing Zurich basketball games that didn’t have much to do with Switzerland. I recently got rid of another news feed about Geneva, Switzerland because too many of their posts were about Wisconsin and Illinois weather and crimes.

Last week I sent a number of nasty notices to someone who was illegally picking up GenevaLunch posts and republishing them on several sites that encourage the visitor to think they are legitimately about and from Switzerland. These are posted from Florida and have nothing to do with Switzerland. At least a real human being replied to my threats about their theft.

All of these are picking up news feeds and just republishing them, what I called stirring the news rather than creating it. And many use multiple feeds that simply look for words like “Zurich” then dump basketball from Illinois with art exhibits in the Swiss town, as if no one will notice the difference.

A plea from this editor: please help us to continue producing real news by scrapping the frauds from your feeds, on the Internet, Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere. If you are looking for information about Swiss rail passes, train tickets, hotels and chocolate, for example, please be sure the site you are visiting is the real thing and not just a lookalike, so that the information you get is accurate and up to date, and the frauds don’t have your visits to count.

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – “Killing the messenger’ is a project carried out annually for the News Safety Institute the the Cardiff, Wales, School of Journalism, toting up the number of journalists who are killed each year while reporting, usually from strife-torn areas. Last year saw 124 reporters killed, with 45 of them, the largest proportion, working for TV news stations.

RIP

Source: News Safety Institute March 2012

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The new Timelines option for Facebook users that has been gradually rolled out for individuals in recent weeks will be available to companies for their brand pages, starting at the end of this month, according to Ad Age. The date of the new feature’s availability has been the subject of much speculation but it now appears likely that the company will provide details and introduce Timeline for pages 29 February at a conference it is holding for marketing people.

Ad Age suggests a number of changes that are expected to be part of the new version, more in line with branding needs of companies which have pages.

Mashable in December made a stab at guessing what the new pages’ Timeline might look like.

A couple people with slow Internet connections, one in Cambodia and another on an island in Scotland, have had trouble loading the BSCC video about me and GenevaLunch, so I’m posting a smaller file version here, which should help. Enjoy it and let us know you like it, please!

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – You can close down a newspaper but you can’t put it out to pasture completely, it seems, with the news world’s ethics debates still raging four months after the demise of The News of the World in Britain.

On the one hand, the newspaper was praised by media and the judge alike in last week’s cricket-fixing scam trial, which sent three top international players to prison. The newspaper had uncovered the scam by sending an undercover agent to meet with members of Pakistan’s team and their agent.

And on the other hand, there is outrage over the cushy settlement given by its owner, the Murdochs, to Rebekah Brooks, the Rupert Murdoch protege who ultimately landed the top editorial job at the newspaper and served as a director on several boards with links to it. The Guardian’s Observer reports that she was given a £1.7 million payoff and the use of an upscale office and chauffeured limosine for two years. Brooks was fired over the ongoing scandal involving newspapers and illegal phone hacking in Britain.

Investigators are also looking into payouts by newspapers to police officers. A journalist with the Sun was arrested at his home 6 November, with Business Week calling it “a development that spreads the taint of scandal to the country’s biggest-selling newspaper. UK broadcasters and newspapers identified the journalist as award-winning editor Jamie Pyatt, whose name appeared on one of The Sun’s most sensational scoops — a story with a photograph showing Prince Harry attending a costume party dressed in Nazi garb.” Pyatt’s name has been mentioned by UK media but not confirmed by his employer, Mudoch-owned News International, nor by the police.

The Guardian reports that James Murdoch, who will appear before the House of Commons for a second time, Thursday 10 November, is “likely to be questioned about previous claims that illegal practices did not take place at the Sun newspaper, where Brooks was editor between 2003 and 2009 before being elevated to the role of chief executive of News International”. The newspaper reports that Pyatt worked under Brooks while she was editor of the Sun.

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Who is growing faster, who is winning which bit of the world stakes – The Economist does a better job than anyone of tracking India versus China and the latest chart is a nice addition. Switzerland has just hosted India’s president for a couple days and aid and trade questions will be very much on Swiss political minds in coming days.

“How the Asian superpowers compare on various measures of development” incidentally draws a stark picture of the rich-poor divide in the two countries, worse in India, if not great in China.

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland in Chinese: even without Mandarin you can follow these unusual TV travel documentaries on the Switzerland you thought you knew! Occasional travel feature contributor to GenevaLunch, Liam Bates, who spends much of his time as the host of a popular Chinese TV travel show that usually tours hidden corners of China, brings his TV crew to Switzerland to show them his home country, taking a look that goes deeper than pretty scenery. The six shows are being aired this week and the ones below can now be seen on the Internet.

Switzerland in Chinese, for the rapidly budding Chinese travel market:

• episode one, Swiss TV star visits his mountain home for the national holiday, complete with digging garden potatoes, picking raspberries and visiting the neighboring cows, plus delivering gifts from China for the family and childhood memories of where how he became interested in China and traveling, ending with a dusk raclette chalet dinner (note: Liam is my son, so you see GL editor Ellen Wallace at home)
• episode two, visit to the famous Gemmi festival above Leukerbad, alphorn concert in the Alps, dawn cheese-making high above Crans-Montana and a picnic as the sun rises
• episode three, making sense of armed neutrality and citizen militia duty: training with the Swiss army’s search and rescue service and cooking with the world champion Swiss army chefs, taking time out for the Weeping Lion monument in Lucern, hitting the summer slopes in Zermatt near the Matterhorn (last is a preview for episode 4).
• episode four, summer sports like climbing and fast glacier-skiing/snowboarding in Zermatt with a former Swiss ski team champion, then Swiss mountain rescue services in action: Rega system with Air Zermatt, Air Glaciers and the amazing work of the Redog rescue dog teams. Preview of episode 5 – making Swiss chocolate, behind the scenes, mmmm.
• episode five, adding Chinese spice to a chocolatier‘s kitchen, awash in Swiss chocolate!, Barry and the St Bernard Hospice dogs including a new batch of extremely cute puppies, making the perfect Swiss army knife at Victorinox factory. Preview of episode 6 – Lake Geneva, high Alpine Furka pass steam train.
• episode six, at home in Saint Prex, Vetropak glass recycling, Furka steam train with conductor, dining and wining in Locarno, Geneva’s Slowup

Ed. note, 2 October: more than 1.3 people have viewed the first show alone on the Internet, possibly the most popular-ever China Travel Channel complete episode online!

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND -A-level exam results come out 18 August in the UK and Chris Cook, writing in the Financial Times 1 August, has finally cleared up something that has puzzled me, as a journalist, for several years. Why is this news always covered heavily by the British media with blond girls, most of whom are shrieking, leaping and jumping up and down? How do they all find them so easily?

The International Baccalaureate, more widespread in English in Switzerland than the British A-level for university entrance exams, doesn’t generate the same level of manic reporting as the UK exams. IB exam results came out in early July and while they generated a lot of skyping, Facebook chatter and e-mail, the celebrations and disappointments remained mostly private.

Not so for A-levels, on which a nation’s future depends, it always appears, and the nation debates what each year’s results really mean to the Empire. Some readers will enjoy Cook’s initial explanation of the leaping blonds phenomenon: “This is partly because many journalists are moral degenerates.” But the real explanation is even more intriguing.

Thank you to the 101 people who filled out our informal online survey, “Help us save the planet’s brain! Sustainable news consumption survey”.

The largest age group was over 50 but respondents were fairly evenly divided among three groups, ages 26-35, 36-49 and 50+. Most live in Europe (78%), with Switzerland as the place 78% of those people call home.

Those who responded came to the survey through GenevaLunch.com, the web site or the Facebook or Twitter pages, so there is some prejudice towards online news, clearly. One of the under-26 respondents assured me the response in this age group would be low: “We hate surveys!” and he was right, but it’s difficult to judge if this reflects the readers of GenevaLunch.com or just the age group.

One regret: we were unable to create the questions in such a way that we could match age groups to responses.

Mobile apps: lukewarm use

Contrary to popular marketing reports, respondents are not all getting all their news from mobile phone apps, but from a mix of sources. Online news remains the most important, with well over twice the number of people who said newspapers, radio and TV are their main source, and mobile apps are at the bottom of the heap although 63 people admit to getting their news this way: 10 people say it is their second source of information, 15 say they turn to these sometimes, and 30 say they use these once in a blue moon for news.

The survey responses

1. What generation are you part of?

under 26 (hot!)		07.0%	7
26-35 (very cool)		24.0%	24
36-50 (getting wiser by the minute)		33.0%	33
+50 (ripening nicely)		36.0%	36

answered question 100
skipped question 0

2. Where is the place you call home, where you spend most of your time, or where you’ve spent the most time in the past 12 months (up to you to define home here)?

Asia		02.0%	2
Europe		77.6%	76
North America		16.3%	16
South America		00.0%	0
Other (please specify)		04.1%	4

answered question 98
skipped question 2

Other: Middle East, England, Pacific, Africa

3. If you’re calling Europe home, which of these is the place you had in mind?

Switzerland		78.3%	65
France		08.4%	7
Germany		03.6%	3
Ireland		01.2%	1
Italy		00.0%	0
Sweden		00.0%	0
UK		03.6%	3
other		04.8%	4

answered question 83
skipped question 17

4. The biggest or most exciting event in the past 50 years has just occurred and you heard about it from – (actually, we just want you to tell us how you usually get your news, please)

Note: highlighted figures are the largest response for each group.

4 responses to “other”: ctrl-news; in conversation; newsmagazines = newsweek; internet

Thank you again to those who took part and to Monkey Survey for providing the tool for an anonymous online survey.

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – . . . you’re not going to be as upset as some people by this brief announcement from the owners of The Guardian and The Observer, because you’re already a digital news lover. Still, it is one more nail in the coffin for that print newspaper over coffee and a Danish or croissant.

“Guardian News and Media announced last week that it is to cease publishing its international print editions as part of its new digital-first strategy. In line with its focus on digital platforms and subscription-based products, the final international editions of The Guardian and The Observer, printed in New York, Frankfurt, Madrid, Malta and Cyprus, will be published on 30th September 2011. The distribution of The Guardian Weekly will be increased.”