the RTS could withdraw a questionnaire

A questionnaire from the general management of Swiss public broadcasting (SSR) relating, among other things, to gender was debated in the program “Le poinG” which will be broadcast Wednesday evening on Léman Bleu.

A questionnaire relating, among other things, to gender and which is being discussed within the governing bodies of Swiss public broadcasting (SSR) was the subject of a discussion in the program “Le poinG” by Laetitia Guinand which will be broadcast Wednesday at 8 p.m. on the Léman Bleu channel.

One of the participants of this show, Jonas Follonier, author of the essay The spread of Wokism in Switzerlandpublished by Slatkine, denounced a case of “wokism” at the SSR, facing the director of the Strategy and Programming Department of the RTS, Thierry Zweifel, also present on the set.

The case denounced is a “diversity checklist” attached to a “Pact for the conditions for granting financing from the SSR (ed: the central management of Swiss public broadcasting) to both fictional and non-fictional productions”.

Clearly, anyone wishing to obtain funding from the SSR for the production of a work, whether fiction or not, is asked to complete a questionnaire providing information on the “diversity” among the people to appear in the work. on screen, as well as within the film crew.

This questionnaire has been debated for at least a year within the SSR, as reported in the New Zurich newspaper in 2023.

Here is what is asked in the questionnaire:

The boxes proposed for checking include the following: “Gender roles”, “Skin color/racialized people”, “Life with impaired health or bodily integrity”, “Sexual orientation and/or identity”, “Migration”, “Multi-generational living together”, “Is gender diversity represented?”, “Does the distribution include people from population groups that tend to be under-represented in the [domaine du] film?”, that is to say: “racialized people, non-heterosexual people, affected by their health or physical appearance, from a disadvantaged economic background, with a migratory or other experience.”

About the film crew, the questions are:

“Are there any special offers to encourage employees from underrepresented population groups (ed: the same groups as the people appearing on screen) to join the team?”, “ Are opportunities offered to employees to reconcile professional and private lives during the production period?

The third part of the questionnaire concerns gender. The “leading members of the team” (production, direction, screenplay, production direction, animation, etc.) are invited to define themselves, as desired, as:

The RTS would remove the “upstream checklist”

In “Le fistG” which will be broadcast on Wednesday evening, Thierry Zweifel, the director of the Strategy and Programming Department of RTS, questioned about the “diversity checklist”, affirms that “a discussion is taking place at the moment” within the SSR about this questionnaire, but that it is not used by the RTS. However, he adds that he has heard the “criticisms” about him, including those made by Jonas Follonier in his book.

According to Thierry Zweifel, in the future, the “diversity checklist” could be used once the fictional or non-fictional productions have been completed and not before them. He specifies: the “diversity checklist”, “used for a certain time by the SRF”, German-speaking radio and television, “has never obstructed the choice of a project” at the RTS, which uses it “mainly to for statistical purposes.

Things now seem clearer. It remains to be seen whether the questionnaire will remain one, to be completed, where applicable, by people who took part in a film, or whether it will be observational reports based on the works produced, in order to ensure generally speaking, respect for “inclusion and diversity”, values ​​dear to the RTS, as recalled by Thierry Zweifel in “Le poinG”, according to Jonas Follonier.

“Definition of Wokism”

That being said, what is wokism, a term that electrifies? The wokes being for some liberators, for others, cops disguised as liberators. In his essay which aims to be a critique of an ideology with a “totalitarian” dimension, Jonas Follonier gives a three-point definition, with the assistance of professor of philosophy at the University of Neuchâtel Olivier Massin, who signs the preface.

According to them, Wokism is a “political ideology which endorses the following three theses”:

Jonas Follonier’s book is full of examples of “wokism” taken from French-speaking cases, in universities, schools, state media and culture. It’s up to everyone to form their own opinion on these questions.

Fear of the “200 francs is enough” initiative?

The expected withdrawal of the “diversity checklist” by the RTS, ahead of productions, certainly reflects a form of exasperation in the face of processes that could restrict creative freedom. The measure taken perhaps also indicates the fear of the RTS, and therefore of the SSR, in the run-up to the popular initiative “200 francs is enough” relating to the fee, on which the people will vote in 2026 normally.

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