Patrick Fischer and the great silence – What occupied SRF for weeks while the world burned

It's an art. Not every newsroom has mastered it, but SRF has perfected it over the years: the art of reporting for weeks on something that's already settled, in order to avoid having to report on something that's still hotly debated. Patrick Fischer, former coach of the Swiss national ice hockey team, used a fake Covid certificate at the 2022 Olympic Games. He paid his fine. He apologized publicly. Legally speaking, the case is closed. Not at SRF. There, the Fischer case was blown up into a media spectacle lasting weeks, commented on, contextualized, morally judged, and commented on again – with a persistence that one can only wish for with other topics.

Take, for example, the federal government's Covid vaccination contracts, which the Federal Office of Public Health kept under wraps for years and was only forced to publish in full after a ruling by the Federal Administrative Court. This ruling created enforced transparency regarding contracts the government had concluded with Moderna and Novavax – contracts whose contents the public was simply not meant to be informed about. One has to ask: How many minutes of airtime on Swiss public broadcaster SRF did this matter receive? How many reports, how many analyses, how many critical questions were posed to the FOPH, which to this day describes the vaccination as "safe" and "effective" on its website, while its own internal records – insofar as they are available – paint a different picture?

Anyone who has followed events closely in recent years knows the answer.

This is no oversight. This is selection. Journalism decides anew each day what it reports on and what it remains silent about. These decisions are never neutral. They reflect interests, dependencies, institutional loyalties, and sometimes simply the fear of damaging a narrative that one has supported for years. Those who for a long time spread the good news that vaccination is safe, effective, and a societal obligation now face an enormous challenge, as they would now have to admit that the contracts were only published under legal pressure, since the authorities would never have released them voluntarily.

The alternative: Patrick Fischer. A sports coach, a fake certificate, a sentence already served. To present this in a morally sound manner, clearly delineating between good and evil, without anyone in the editorial team having to question their own behavior over the past five years.

What's remarkable is what's happening in the comment sections – that last remaining place where readers express their opinions even more unfiltered than the editorial staff. There, a significant portion of the readership is showing solidarity with Fischer. Not just those who rejected the certification system from the outset. Even vaccinated individuals are writing: "In retrospect, Fischer did everything right." This isn't a fringe phenomenon. This is a tipping point. These are people comparing the official narrative with their own experience – and discovering that the numbers don't add up. The editorial staff notices this. And continues to report on Fischer.

Then there are the Epstein files. Documents that were gradually released in the US, revealing the involvement of a criminal elite in systematic child abuse and networks of power, blackmail, and institutional impunity. The reaction of many established media outlets was remarkably consistent: downplaying, relativizing, "fighting conspiracy theories." Anyone who took the files seriously was labeled an extremist. Anyone who asked which well-known names appeared in them and what connections needed to be drawn was pigeonholed, relegated to a category from which no journalist can escape without being damaged.

This is no coincidence. It's a protective function. Not to protect the public – but to protect those about whom reports would need to be made.

And what about the RKI protocols? Thousands of pages of internal communications revealing that the Robert Koch Institute knew internally what it denied externally. That the pandemic definitions, the justifications for measures, and the communication strategies were assessed differently internally than publicly communicated. The whistleblower who released these protocols should have triggered an avalanche of critical reporting. What followed was a muted murmur in some alternative media outlets and widespread silence in the mainstream media.

Fischer. Always Fischer.

The system revealed here is not complicated. Institutions that have spread messages for five years that turn out to be false, exaggerated, or deliberately manipulated have no interest in coming to terms with the past. Because coming to terms with the past means admitting their own failure. Because that would cost them the face they've cultivated for five years as the infallible voice of reason. And because any serious journalism about vaccine contracts, Epstein networks, or RKI protocols would inevitably raise the question: Where were you when all this was happening?

The answer is well-known. They were busy defaming dissenters, labeling critics as conspiracy theorists, and portraying Fischer-like cases as moral transgressions, all to give the public the impression of genuine journalism. Meanwhile, a counter-narrative is forming in the comment sections. Readers are settling accounts – quietly, objectively, and relentlessly.

The narrative is already shifting. Newsrooms are the last to notice…